Click here to copy URL

The Hudsucker Proxy

1994

Joel Coen

Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman, Charles Durning ...

6.6

12,467

Comedy When Waring Hudsucker, head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Mussberger, comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of money: appoint a moron to run the company. When the stock falls low enough, Sidney and friends can buy it up for pennies on the dollar, take over the company, and restore its fortunes. They choose idealistic Norville Barnes, who just started in the mail ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Caryn James The New York Times	"Stylish and witty though it is, 'The Hudsucker Proxy' has its problems, even for Coen fans. The film begins to falter after Norville's invention makes him a success"	NEU
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"Robbins is a marvel (...) Leigh gives a glorious performance (...) As the triumphantly fresh and witty 'Hudsucker' proves, the Coens make comedies that aren’t afraid of the dark."	POS
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"This is the best-looking movie I've seen in years, a feast for the eyes and the imagination (...) But the problem with the movie is that it's all surface and no substance (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Todd McCarthy Variety	"One of the most inspired and technically stunning pastiches of old Hollywood pictures ever to come out of the New Hollywood. But a pastiche it remains"	NEU
United States	Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly	"For all its technical bravado, 'The Hudsucker Proxy' is an unsettling contradiction, a 'whimsical' fable made by acerbic control freaks. It’s a balloon that won’t fly"	NEU
United Kingdom	Kim Newman Empire	"While not to everyone's tastes, this is without doubt one of the most exhilarating films of 1994 (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Joe Brown The Washington Post	"'Hudsucker' is clever but cold, a heartless mechanical gizmo"	NEU
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"A jeering, dreamlike comedy with little on its mind except how neat the Coens are and how stupid or contemptible everybody else is, including the audience."	NEG
United States	Marjorie Baumgarten Austin Chronicle	"[It] works more like a fairy tale in which all implausibilities are acceptable and none of it has to play by real-world rules. But it's a fairy tale without any lessons, a satire without any targets (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU
United States	Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times	"You have to admire what the Coen brothers have accomplished in 'The Hudsucker Proxy,' but actually enjoying their achievement is a little more difficult."	NEU

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.