Dom Hemingway
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: April 2, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
14
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghApr 24, 2014
Dom Hemingway is a naughty good time while it lives up to the unpredictable bawdiness of its opening line. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottApr 18, 2014
A giddy blend of style and attitude that plays like a lightweight cross between a Guy Ritchie and Wes Anderson film. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 17, 2014
The movie is best enjoyed as a minor-key operatic, not a coherent story. While Law bellows blasphemous poetry, his director orchestrates a noirish light show with a cockeyed rhythm. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezApr 17, 2014
Dom Hemingway is often viciously funny in unexpected ways, and every time you think the movie has run out of steam, Shepard spins things in a new direction, keeping the energy from flagging (including one of the most startling car crashes I’ve ever seen in a film). Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 17, 2014
Jude Law's ferociously vulgar portrayal of a hard-luck safecracker carries the first hour of this amorality tale. Then writer-director Richard Shepard makes the creatively fatal mistake of making Dom Hemingway sympathetic, when irredeemable is much more fun. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiApr 16, 2014
If there were anything approaching narrative coherence, the film might have rested on Law’s performance alone. As it stands, Dom Hemingway the character is eclipsed by the inability of Dom Hemingway the movie to decide what it wants to be. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanApr 16, 2014
The star's innate vulnerability (and his ease with Dom's colorful but expansive vocabulary) makes the character more sympathetic than he has any right to be. And that, in turn, makes Shepard's film more entertaining than the Guy Ritchie ripoff it initially resembles. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanApr 11, 2014
Though writer-director Richard Shepard (“The Matador”) knows how to spin a yarn about the vicissitudes of fate, Dom’s adventures make for a pretty thin garment in which to cloth such an outsize antihero. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 10, 2014
The one thing that never falters during the course of the film is Jude Law's volcanic performance. Reminiscent of Tom Hardy's turn in Bronson, this is the kind of portrayal that garners notice and raves. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 10, 2014
We’re just watching Jude Law, who gained some 30 pounds for this role, acting his rear end off but also spinning his wheels in a story that never amounts to more than a collection of vignettes about Dom’s life after prison. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonApr 10, 2014
Dom Hemingway isn't about story. It's about Jude Law as a force of nature, and that turns out to be a very entertaining diversion. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughApr 10, 2014
Entertaining if inconsequential gangster farce. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 10, 2014
The material, limited payoff; the performer at the center, never less than arresting. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbyApr 9, 2014
Jude Law, saying farewell once again to his youthful good looks (Dom has scars and a little too much weight), makes this hyper-articulate ruffian the most intricately soulful character in current movies. [7 April 2014, p.75]
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 4, 2014
Dom Hemingway is an uneven movie, to be sure — plot holes abound, and some of the aforementioned clichés can be distracting — but it’s still hard to resist. Because rarely have an actor and a part been so perfect for each other, and Shepard lets his lead run wild with this offbeat, contradictory character. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 3, 2014
Jude Law put on 30 pounds to play this slimeball. But the weightier question is, why would he bother to take this worn-out role, at any size? Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithApr 2, 2014
This pointless study of a witless character is a sad waste of Law’s talents. The more zestily he delivers Dom’s profane tirades, the more you wish Shepard gave us a reason to care about this lout. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanApr 2, 2014
If ever there were an actor ripe to ''McConaughnesize'' his career, it's Jude Law — and guess what, he has done it, spectacularly, in Dom Hemingway. Read full review
42
IndieWireEric KohnApr 2, 2014
For all its vibrant, flamboyant aspects, “Dom Hemingway” is a resoundingly empty star vehicle. It gives Law a character too thinly crafted to justify his eccentricities. He acts his heart out for a role that has no heart. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyApr 2, 2014
The drama Dom Hemingway explores involves a vicious lout finding a form of redemption, and while that's an all-too conventional scenario, Shepard's movie plays it out in a brisk, inventive fashion and delivers a moviegoing experience that's almost equal parts stingingly sharp and genuinely sweet. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyApr 2, 2014
Between Law's performance and Shepard's script, which brims with explicit and expressive dialogue, the movie is remarkable for its ability to exhaust, irritate and also entertain. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 1, 2014
Dom Hemingway is a bright, shiny bauble with next to no lasting power. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonApr 1, 2014
If only Shepard's movie lived up to his leading man. It's merely a frame for a character portrait, with Shepard's camera screwing our eyes to Law's performance and pasting in supporting actors and situations for no larger purpose than to see his reaction to them. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 1, 2014
When you name your movie Dom Hemingway and then require the titular antihero to repeatedly declare, “I am Dom Hemingway!” the filmmakers must be very confident that there is something special about their character. Too bad there isn’t. Read full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreApr 1, 2014
Writer-director Richard Shepard did “”The Matador” and “The Hunting Party”, and he surrounds Law’s lunatic Dom with assorted underworld figures who have mellowed where Dom did not. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloApr 1, 2014
Dom Hemingway is often ghoulishly funny, with Law, who put on weight for the role and plays up his receding hairline, turning in a larger-than-life performance unlike any he’s given before. Read full review
70
The DissolveScott TobiasApr 1, 2014
Shepard’s image de-habilitation on Law smacks of gimmickry—and the world has no immediate need for another vulgar British crime picture—but the actor seems invigorated by the change, and the film matches his robustness to a fault. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyMar 30, 2014
What you see in Dom Hemingway is exactly what you end up getting. It’s filthy, it’s shouty, it’s embarrassing, and you mainly want it to go away. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramMar 30, 2014
Shepard’s film is fun but forgettable in the first hour, then disappointing in the final third. But Law’s raucous turn keeps you watching. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineChris CabinMar 28, 2014
That Dom is so clearly an up-to-11 caricature, embodied with reliable pizzazz by Jude Law, makes the sentimental moments feel especially false. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 15, 2013
Everyone is trying way too hard and Dom's final speech is toe-curlingly misjudged and charmless. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonDave CalhounNov 12, 2013
There are only so many scenes anyone can take of Law (never suited to the geezer role) strutting down streets shooting his gob off. If it was all in service of a smart story, so be it. But it isn’t. Read full review
40
EmpireDan JolinNov 11, 2013
Bitty and frustrating, its bigger laughs are set against some off-balance storytelling and crude comedy. Not one to take your nan to. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 15, 2013
Shepard balances a livelier-than-life script with striking, super-saturated images, which makes the film feel bigger than it is. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 15, 2013
Richard Shepard’s film is far from dull, but it just doesn’t feel like the real thing, more like an artificial construct inspired by pumped-up crime favorites from a couple of decades ago. Read full review
85
Film.comJordan HoffmanSep 15, 2013
There are countless clever dialogue parries as well as some quite outstanding rants. It definitely takes the movie outside of the world of pure realism, but the theatricality is well worth it. Read full review
83
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthSep 15, 2013
While there's no doubt that Shepard's film is frequently laugh-out-loud funny and impressively, wittily written, with a finely tuned ear for the perfect bit of foul language, it stumbles slightly on the story side. Read full review
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