Charley Varrick

Universal Pictures | Release Date: October 19, 1973

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

76	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Budd Wilkins

Ultracool. Read full review

Don Druker

This 1973 feature is one of the finest examples of action montage from its period, a dynamite piece of work. Read full review

Paul Taylor

Marvellous, toughly eccentric thriller which confirmed that Siegel had more responses to '70s paranoia than a mere Magnum blast, and decisively removed Matthau from the wasteland of Neil Simon wit. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Director Donald Siegel of ``Dirty Harry'' fame produces a suspenseful, fast-paced suspenser, film, providing numerous offbeat twists and turns along the way. [08 Nov 1996, p.37]

Nathan Rabin

A low-key, tough little thriller punctuated by casual bursts of brutality and deadpan humor, Charley Varrick is informed by a quiet professionalism that suits a movie about feds and criminals doing their jobs, whether that means laundering money, making fake passports, or robbing banks. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Charley Varrick is a sometimes-fuzzy melodrama but so well put together that it emerges a hardhitting actioner with a sock finale. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson -- the '70s' three reigning American action movie superstars -- had their thunder stolen when top action director Siegel cast rumpled, baleful-eyed comic sourpuss Walter Matthau in this classic '70s thriller. [09 May 1999, p.C9]

John Hartl

Walter Matthau has a field day with the title character: a crop duster/bank robber who bills himself as "the last of the independents" - and runs circles around a Mafia killer (Joe Don Baker). [07 Mar 1996, p.F3]

Mike Clark

Cult director Don Siegel bookended Dirty Harry with this esteemed toughie. [08 Mar 1996]

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

A very well made caper film full of action and rich with character. Read full review

Vincent Canby

Siegel has decorated the movie with a lot of colorful bit characters including a chatty, sex‐obsessed old woman, but the action sequences give the film its content as well as style. Read full review

Pauline Kael

It's noisy and brutal, with sentimental flourishes.