Harper Barnes
Select another critic »For 94 reviews, this critic has graded:
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68% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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29% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.5 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Harper Barnes' Scores
- Movies
- TV
| Average review score: | 66 | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest review score: | The Age of Innocence | |
| Lowest review score: | Color of Night | |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 63 out of 94
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Mixed: 17 out of 94
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Negative: 14 out of 94
94
movie
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Harper Barnes
Elijah Wood Jr. is excellent as a boy who goes looking for a new father and mother. A fairly amusing, very light fantasy from Rob Reiner. [14 Aug 1994, p.14C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Posse is an exciting, action-packed Western, and almost all of its social commentary is skillfully embedded in the gripping drama itself. [14 May 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The movie has a hallucinatory intensity that is skillfully mixed with light-comic relief and straight-faced farce. It never takes itself too seriously, and never veers too far in the other direction by surrendering to self-parody. [01 Jul 1994, p.3D]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
If there is a criticism of this generally superb documentary, it would be that it focuses a little too much on Monk's mental condition and could have devoted more of that time to exploring his highly innovative music. But if ''Straight, No Chaser'' succeeds through its psycho-biographical focus in interesting more people in the music of this brilliant man, then I cannot really quibble with the approach. [27 Apr 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
If you are willing to forgive it a lot -- and on a sunny, winter-spring day, my capacity for forgiveness was immense -- Chances Are can be an entertaining little trifle. [17 March 1989, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A very unsettling black comedy....although by the end, you might feel as if you have been assaulted by a combination of ''Blue Velvet'' and ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'' This is a very impressive directorial debut for Bob Balaban, working from a chilling (and eventually cutting and slashing) script by Christopher Hawthorne. [28 Apr 1989, p.6F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Just when you've decided it's just another queasy thriller about a woman-hating serial killer, and you're beginning to wonder if Hollywood isn't making too many of these nasty little things, Malice winds up and delivers a terrific curveball. [01 Oct 1993, p.3EV]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Without question. Vertigo is one of the best movies ever made by one of the best directors. [Restored version; 7 Dec 1996, p.41]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Reitman's movie is triumphant and actually deserves being mentioned in the same breath with those great comedies of 50 years ago. [07 May 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Simultaneously enigmatic and painfully direct, melodramatic yet subtle, playful yet tragic, Au Hasard Balthazar is a deeply moving portrait of the sins and mercies of mankind as seen and suffered by an ass. [30 Jul 2004, p.E03]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Hill fans - and I'm one - should find Last Man Standing intriguing, but it's certainly not among his top four or five works. [20 Sep 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
If you're looking for down and dirty, Kiss of Death delivers the goods. [21 Apr 1995, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
This wonderfully wry, painfully funny comedy about a middle-aged boy and his mother is Albert Brooks' most accessible movie. [17 Jan 1997, p.03E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A generally entertaining Western with some striking images, Young Guns II is significantly better than the original Young Guns. [02 Aug 1990, p.4E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The world Nair shows us is, on the whole, an unpleasant one, but there is never any sense of false melodrama or of the camera selecting only shocking or hopeless images. And as a whole, the film documents how difficult it is to defeat the human spirit. [24 Mar 1989, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Warren Beatty's new tour de force about the ax-jawed detective is generally fun to watch. Visually, it's brilliant. Dramatically, it's OK. [15 Jun 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
But what The Paper does best is capture the flavor of a newsroom at its craziest, when, say, you are five minutes past deadline on a breaking story, it's July and the air conditioning is broken, two editors are yelling contradictory commands at you and a workman is standing on your desk putting holes in the ceiling with a deafening electric drill. [25 March 1994, p.3H]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THANKS to the boys of summer - nine wonderful child actors - and a sweetly nostalgic story well told by writer-director David Mickey Evans, The Sandlot is a winner. [9 Apr 1993, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THIS is one tough movie....When its uncompromising final scene has faded, we are emotionally shattered, left with some inkling of how the citizens of Salem, Mass., must have felt 300 years ago, after a reign of self-righteous, hysterical, scapegoating terror had swept through their claustrophobic town, sending a significant portion of its tiny population to the gallows, or worse. [20 Sept 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THE LAIR of the White Worm is an extremely silly and rather bloody movie. If you are willing to accept it as a tacky spoof of tacky horror movies, you should find it funny - at times, downright hilarious. [3 Feb 1989, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Thanks in great part to a couple of dozen wonderful soul songs from the 1960s, and a very engaging and talented group of young Dubliners, The Commitments is a thorough delight - warm, funny and deeply human. [13 Sep 1991, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Ultimately, however, the only real problem with the new version of "The Getaway" is that Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger just don't seem very believable as tough professional criminals. You just know they are only a shower and a manicure away from dinner at Spago. [11 Feb 1994, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Since the movie never really gets very far beneath the skin of these immensely talented people, their battles and her final victory seldom rise above the level of moderately entertaining melodrama. [11 Jun 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Remarkable...For All Mankind is a lovely film. Brian Eno's soundtrack is majestic without being overly sentimental, and Reinert's choice of images ranges skillfully from the ironically ordinary - astronauts eating, listening to country music and teasing one another about personal quirks - to the awe inspiring. [2 Feb 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The movie is a little too long, and sinks briefly into the doldrums when it turns overly serious in the last half hour or so. But Little Big League recovers nicely, and the ending is terrific. This is one of the few recent movies that parents and children would enjoy together. [03 Jul 1994, p.16C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
AFTER the first 10 minutes or so, there are few surprises in The Package. But director Andrew Davis, given a suspense script with little actual suspense in it, keeps this espionage tale moving right along, and Gene Hackman, as usual, is a plus. The result is a moderately entertaining if predictable action film. [25 Aug 1989, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A generally entertaining schmaltzy melodrama, as long as you are not overly reverent about traditional versions of the Arthurian legend and can get over William Nicholson's sometimes clumsy dialogue. [07 Jul 1995, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The movie is enjoyable if it isn't taken too seriously. Geena Davis sparkles as a TV reporter who is among those rescued, Chevy Chase is amusing in an uncredited role as a TV executive and Garcia is, as usual, both charming and believable, in a movie-star kind of way. Hoffman is always interesting to watch, even when, as in this movie, he reminds us a little too much of some of the other roles on his resume. [04 Oct 1992, p.12C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
