Good Kill
IFC Films | Release Date: May 15, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
14
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesStephen HoldenMay 14, 2015
Mr. Hawke’s anguished performance gives Good Kill a hot emotional center. Read full review
80
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekMay 13, 2015
It's immediate and vital, and it doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve got all the right answers. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerApr 6, 2015
It’s "Top Gun" with gamer’s thumb. Ethan Hawke shines in a complex, satisfying character study turned combat thriller. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 13, 2014
Just as Niccol’s narrative structure is at once fraught and immaculate in its escalation of ideas and character friction, so his arguments remain ever-so-slightly oblique despite the tidiness of their presentation. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianJeff BakerMay 22, 2015
Good Kill deserves credit for framing these important issues in a credible, visually challenging drama, but writer-director Andrew Niccol doesn't take his material anywhere interesting. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniMay 21, 2015
One of the most insightful films about the War on Terror since 9/11. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 21, 2015
Good Kill is never subtle and occasionally veers into implausibility....But the visuals pack a visceral punch. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 14, 2015
Writer-director Andrew Niccol, who worked impressively with Hawke on the topic of genetic modification in 1997's "Gattaca," puts a lot out there. Read full review
75
HitfixDrew McWeenySep 14, 2014
Niccol is working in a very stripped down and direct mode, and I think overall, it works. Good Kill is unsettling, and the entire cast does spare, unsentimental work. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMay 17, 2015
Potent enough to make me wish it were less clunky. It certainly won’t convert the jingoist fighting keyboardists, who probably won’t care that the president at the time the film is set — 2010 — is Obama, under whose watch the use of warrior drones has escalated exponentially. For them, Dick Cheney’s “dark side” still shines brightly. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesGlenn WhippMay 14, 2015
That cost can be seen in the tight strain on Hawke's face. An actor with the gift of gab (most notably in his collaborations with Richard Linklater), Hawke here delivers a nuanced turn as a man on the threshold of emotional ruin. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMay 11, 2015
Hawke is on a roll right now, and Good Kill stirs him to another performance of cogency and zeal. Is it sufficient, however, to support an entire movie? Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 13, 2014
Niccol weighs the human toll on both aggressor and target with intelligence and compassion, while questioning whether technological warfare is inevitably destined to be an unending cycle. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 13, 2014
Niccol’s film takes a somber, nuanced and compelling look at the War on Terror as it is waged by U.S. drone pilots, right up until a final five minutes that, in a shower of pat resolutions and conclusions, delivers something of a surgical strike on the its credibility. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 21, 2015
Good Kill is by necessity a grim piece of work, one that fields a powerful and unexpectedly terse performance from Ethan Hawke while stumbling over plot developments that seem increasingly forced. Niccol can be forgiven his outrage even as it leads him to create drama out of agenda instead of the other way around. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMay 21, 2015
An intelligent but not terribly effective drama. And its discussion of military ethics, especially with regard to what it means to be able to kill people without physical consequences, is promising, but it does not go far enough. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 21, 2015
Admittedly, Niccol succumbs to the temptation to make mini-billboards out of his dialogue, in which arguments follow neat “on the one hand” trajectories. But for the most part, Good Kill asks pertinent, enduring questions, not by way of polemic, but through the study of a character. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartMay 13, 2015
Niccol’s film may not be perfect, but it shines a light on a subject many viewers will know vaguely by name — and not much more. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenMay 10, 2015
Like other Niccol films, Good Kill is about an essential innocent who dreams of release from a highly structured, classist, and hypocritical environment. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMay 22, 2015
Niccol's film won't likely achieve the high-flying box-office success of "Top Gun," but it is similar to that 1986 film in that it will likely get people talking after the closing credits roll. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 21, 2015
Niccol looks at the pilot's struggles and the toll this remote form of warfare takes on his life. It's certainly intriguing, but he tells his story in such broad, obvious strokes that the movie isn't as powerful as it could be. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 14, 2015
Compelling as the subject may be, its abstract nature would challenge the most skillful of dramatists, and Mr. Niccol’s script seldom rises above slogans, argumentation and standard-brand domestic tension. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMay 13, 2015
Because it's so rooted in real life, the drama Good Kill is even more terrifying than “The Purge,” Ethan Hawke’s horror film from two years ago. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonApr 7, 2015
Good Kill is a dour, claustrophobic film, offering an acute and stunningly photographed exploration of middle-American banality and moral ambivalence. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatt GlasbyApr 6, 2015
Required viewing as a critique of US foreign policy but forgettable as a drama, Good Kill is a timely warning, even if it lacks the power of the horrors it depicts. Read full review
60
The GuardianHenry BarnesSep 13, 2014
Niccol creates an atmosphere that is airless and dull, an unusual tone for a modern war film, but one that fits the subject matter perfectly. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 13, 2014
A searching, timely drama about the dehumanising effects of waging war at a distance. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisJun 10, 2015
Perhaps the film’s most telling moments, however, are wordless ones in which no actor appears. They’re the bird’s-eye views of American tableaux – suburban tract houses, elementary schools, interstate highways – that mimic similar sky-high perspectives just before a drone fires its missile. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisMay 21, 2015
There’s not enough of a story, and it’s a film that we end up admiring more than liking. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 21, 2015
We need to have a dialogue about the wages of war in the remote-control era. But it’s hard to spark a good dialogue with movies whose dialogue is so bad. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 14, 2015
The trouble begins when this gaunt, intelligent star is charged with embodying someone lacking in levity, someone burdened with excessive malaise. His deadly seriousness can be deadly dull. Read full review
50
The DissolveNoel MurrayMay 13, 2015
Good Kill’s hero is both unsympathetic and uninteresting. That’s partly intentional. Niccol means to show how the drone program can reduce a formerly good man to mush. But making that point comes at the expense of making a nuanced, vibrant motion picture. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 13, 2014
When Good Kill takes aim at US foreign policy and the advances in military technology, it creates moments of chilling and powerful drama, but this is dissipated and compromised by its mirror-punching domestic drama and its bizarre need to bring about something like a happy ending. Read full review
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