Richard Whittaker

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Austin Chronicle
For 629 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Richard Whittaker's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Blindspotting
Lowest review score: 0 Old
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 447 out of 629
  2. Mixed: 145 out of 629
  3. Negative: 37 out of 629
629 movie reviews
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    • 22 Metascore
    • 0 Richard Whittaker
    Children of the Corn
    Wimmer has now twice disproved his ability to rehash old scripts through his terrible updatings of Total Recall and Point Break. Now he exhibits zero visual skill as writer/director of Children of the Corn, an unwatchable reboot of Stephen King's 1977 short story about a blood cult of rural Nebraskan kids who slaughter all adults to the monstrous He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Lost Soulz
    Propper’s greatest success is that she doesn’t overdramatize tragedy and trauma. Awful things do occur, but in an organic way, so that the inevitable reaction is a sense of stunned shock. That’s why there’s no sense of judgement: Instead, there is just Propper’s overwhelming sense of empathy for what it is to be young right now.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    The Duke
    The Duke may superficially seem like old hat, but in its comfortable ways there’s still a strong message.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Dream Scenario
    It's a performance that ranks with some of Cage's best, a mix of Pig's earnestness and Adaptation's idiosyncrasies.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    The Ghost of Peter Sellers
    What's most fascinating is that there's no self-indulgence on Medak's behalf. It's a filmmaker coming to terms with a deep bruise in his life, and the realization that time may heal all wounds, but will still leave a scar.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    Kill
    The destination may seem inevitable, but the twists, turns, and merciless bloodshed make Kill a trip well worth taking.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Lapsis
    Witty, astute, perfectly absurd in a plausibly grounded way, and political without feeling like a polemic, Hutton' quiet satire is merciless about life in the daily hustle - and a lesson about the power of the worker.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 89 Richard Whittaker
    The Iron Claw
    The deep emotional success of The Iron Claw all relies on a remarkable cast – most especially the four brothers, at ease with each other but fatally at odds with themselves.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    The Tale of King Crab
    By turns beautiful and ugly, occasionally infuriating in its obfuscation and disconnect, always slow and intriguing, King Crab is powered by the wild-eyed and soft-spoken charisma of Silli as the instinctually rebellious and disdainful Luciano.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 89 Richard Whittaker
    This Is Not a Movie
    It proves that value of the journalist as record keeper of horrors.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Air
    As always, Affleck remains one of the directors who can disguise a powerful parable as giddy, crowd-pleasing entertainment.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    Free Chol Soo Lee
    As documentary Free Chol Soo Lee shows, it's wisdom that seems to evade what are supposed to be the mechanisms of that justice.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    Dust Bunny
    In its strange and successful mixing of genres, Dust Bunny is arguably everything that Mockingbird Lane, Fuller’s misguided attempt at an edgy take on The Munsters, was not.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    The Surrender
    Underneath the savage occult aspects of the story remains a constant exploration of what it means to see your loved ones as flawed, rounded humans, and ultimately as mortal.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    Hoppers
    It becomes a warm and insightful tribute to every kid that finds peace climbing up a tree, to every adult that realizes the value of the natural world, and to the ties that bind us to the world around us. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn what a keystone species is.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    Funny Pages
    It's all deliberately grotesque, but comic readers will be pleasantly surprised at the degree of compassion for and comprehension of the culture Kline portrays.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 89 Richard Whittaker
    The Killer
    It's really a character study of a working-class stiff, of the kind that Raymond Carver would enjoy, who would work in a factory that sounds like the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, barely music but more rhythmical pops, fizzes, and growls.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Splitsville
    Splitsville succeeds because it never seems fragmented. As a director, Covino dances between the sensual and the silly while constantly exploring the core thesis of the messiness of relationships.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Ferrari
    Mann's decision to restrict this portrait to such a limited time period may leave audiences a little dissatisfied that important events are only recounted, not depicted. But then, if you're on the most thrilling corner of a track, you may not see the finish line.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    News of the World
    While Greengrass' Texas is a place where naivety can get you killed, he still finds a place for trust and healing, expressed through the growing interdependence of Kidd and the kid. Our trauma, News of the World tells us, is not something we can box away. We cannot simply turn the page and pretend it never happened. But we can decide which stories we continue to tell.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    Megadoc
    While Figgis gets this extraordinary and unrestricted access, there’s a real question about what he does with it. Coppola is infamous for finding his films in the edit, but it’s hard to see that Figgis found that much more than he had in the camera.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    The Inspection
    Only when The Inspection is complete does it truly reveal itself: a powerful, poignant, and complicated look at what people will do for acceptance.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Zootopia 2
    The first film was both a fun and furry buddy cop romp and a gentle metaphor for acceptance and cohabitation. Zootopia 2 goes further down that path in a fashion that is unabashedly moralizing when it comes to how some groups are excised and othered in a community, and how gentrification can be a tool of oppression.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    One Of Them Days
    Even if One of Them Days does turn out to be a time capsule of an L.A. that has been incinerated, maybe time is the real test. After all, Friday wasn’t a big hit when it came out, gaining its cult status over time on home video. One of Them Days shares the same kind of comfy, goofy, undemanding rewatchability.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 89 Richard Whittaker
    CODA
    Grounded and sweet, delicately bawdy, and decidedly hilarious, CODA puts an effervescent and original spin on the coming-of-age comedy-drama.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Bros
    It's a deliberate effort by director, co-writer, and rom-com veteran Nicholas Stoller (The Five-Year Engagement, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) to get inside modern gay relationships – or, more especially, affluent, white, middle-class, cis gay male relationships in New York.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 89 Richard Whittaker
    Shithouse
    One of the most extraordinary debuts of the year.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Richard Whittaker
    Whistle
    It’s the same thrill as the Final Destination movies, which Egerton and Hardy have both noted as an influence: watching likable protagonists try and sometimes fail to evade death.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 78 Richard Whittaker
    Belushi
    It's challenging not to see shades of Robin Williams, who was not just Belushi's equal in talent and predilection for pharmaceuticals but also his friend. Williams admitted more than once that it was Belushi's death that made him get sober, the ultimate wake-up call.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 89 Richard Whittaker
    The Long Walk
    Attempted but abandoned by filmmakers from George A. Romero to King regular Frank Darabont, six decades after completion and 40 years after publication, now it crosses the finish line as one of the best King adaptations.
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