Buster's Mal Heart
Well Go USA Entertainment | Release Date: April 28, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Village VoiceApril WolfeApr 26, 2017
It’s science fiction that’s complex, thoughtful and funny, like 12 Monkeys or Primer run through a Fargo filter. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 4, 2017
Writer and director Sarah Adina Smith’s vision is so confident, so sure, that it’s worth trusting her to see where the story goes. Plus, you get Rami Malek at no extra charge. Read full review
75
Washington PostAlan ZilbermanMay 4, 2017
Malek’s talents serve a much more personal, ultimately touching story. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyApr 28, 2017
It’s a movie that puts the viewer into a bad dream, and is very canny in dispensing the keys to unlock the meanings of that dream — and in strategically withholding some of those keys. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleMay 4, 2017
It’s a confident weirdness that Buster’s Mal Heart boasts as it dissects a damaged soul for signs of what’s eternal and what’s triggered when a man breaks in two. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeOct 26, 2016
An affecting brainteaser with echoes of Lynchian dissociation. Read full review
70
VarietyGeoff BerkshireOct 26, 2016
An unusual movie like Buster’s Mal Heart demands an unusual star, and Rami Malek proves an ideal fit for Sarah Adina Smith’s sophomore feature. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeApr 26, 2017
Buster’s Mal Heart is indie sci-fi at its most abstract, taking elements of more populist, influential films like "Fight Club" and "The Matrix" and filtering them through philosophical exchanges and coolly stylized compositions to produce something that’s somehow simultaneously more weighty and more slight. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Johanna SchnellerMay 11, 2017
If you appreciate a writer/director and actor who swing for the fences and chase after big questions (Are we cogs in the machine of the universe? If so, can we alter our fate? Or is everything super random?), this has a dreamlike beauty that may catch you in its spell. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughMay 3, 2017
Smith’s ambitious film at times resembles “Badlands” (1973) crossed with “Fight Club” (1999) as directed by the Coen brothers. Mostly, though, it founders in the complications of its own excess of themes, interconnected story-lines, and multiple personality disorders sketchily connected by an anti-establishment point of view. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisApr 27, 2017
Buster’s Mal Heart is about the making of a madman. It also aspires, with less success, to philosophically query the void at the center of modern life and Christianity’s failure to fill it. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredLauren Humphries-BrooksApr 27, 2017
Despite its undoubted ambition and an excellent central performance from Rami Malek, Buster’s Mal Heart slips into the traps that so often face thrillers of its type. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaApr 22, 2017
Writer-director Sarah Adina Smith's film confuses narrative gimmickry for the sensitive evocation of an inner life. Read full review
50
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthOct 26, 2016
In Buster’s Mal Heart, many of the intriguing thematic ideas in the first half of the picture, are left adrift in favor of trying to keep the audience on its toes. Read full review
50
The Film StageJordan RaupOct 26, 2016
Despite a committed lead performance and flashes of finding beauty in the bizarre, Buster’s Mal Heart loses confidence as it proceeds, resulting in a journey of half-formed ideas that could’ve used as much focus as Malek’s dead-eyed glance. Read full review
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