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Palmetto

1998

Volker Schlöndorff

Woody Harrelson, Elisabeth Shue, Gina Gershon, Rolf Hoppe ...

5.4

1,155

Film noir. Thriller A good guy tries to go bad... but can't. After spending two years in prison for refusing to testify about the corruption in his hometown of Palmetto, Harry Barber is released, bitter and disillusioned. He then gets involved with a seemingly simple kidnapping plot which turns out to be more complex than he imagines.

	Media	Author	Review
		Stephen Holden The New York Times	"[The opening scenes] evoke semitropical rot in southern Florida with such a deliriously sensual appreciation of evil that when the movie eventually runs amok, you can almost forgive it for becoming a shrill, comic self-parody"
		Angie Errigo Empire	"The film is sort of like 'Double Indemnity', sort of like 'The Big Sleep', and sort of like half-a-dozen Robert Mitchum vehicles, without approaching any of them for atmosphere, dialogue or characterisation (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"The movie has elements of the genre and lacks only pacing and plausibility. You wait through scenes that unfold with maddening deliberation, hoping for a payoff--and when it comes, you feel cheated (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"
		Stephen Hunter The Washington Post	"Schlondorff never gets the right spirit of play into it; it seems not ironic, but somewhat dull and sluggish."
		Mick LaSalle SFGATE	"The screenplay is imaginative, surprising and airtight (...) Unfortunately, director Volker Schlondorff (...) gives the film too sluggish and undifferentiated a pace."
		Dennis Harvey Variety	"'Palmetto' seems a rather banal choice for a helmer associated with far more intellectual, challenging material."

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