Grand Theft Parsons
Swipe Films | Release Date: June 18, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
7
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Film ThreatChad Bixby
Top it off with a cameo by the real-life Phil Kaufman, and you've got a rock'n'roll road movie like no other. Wherever he is, Gram should get a kick out of it. Read full review
70
VarietyLeslie Felperin
A likably laid-back spin about the bizarre fate of rock 'n' roll legend Gram Parsons' corpse. Inspired by a true story, pic travels down familiar genre highways, but quirky humor and an apt soundtrack make for a pleasant enough journey. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Gram Parsons' last rites were among the most extra­ordinary in rock history. Too bad this retelling of the singer's final adventure is so tame. Read full review
50
Village VoiceEd Halter
Neither a satisfying exploration of ’70s culture, nor a madcap "Weekend at Bernie’s" caper, nor an informative paean to Parsons's legacy, Grand Theft stumbles toward all three possibilities, backpedals, then stalls, left to coast as an insipid road movie. Read full review
50
New York PostMegan Lehmann
The film is too low-key to be the farcical rock-and-roll jape it sometimes seems to strive for, yet too lighthearted to be affecting. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Knoxville is surprisingly good playing a man who may have been in one too many barroom brawls, moving with a hunched, hips-forward swagger that suggests someone constantly walking through very low doorways. Read full review
50
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Parsons himself might have written a surreal, funny-sad ballad about the aftermath of his own death, but Grand Theft Parsons is little more than a surreal anecdote, told in too much detail and without enough soul or imagination to make anything more than a footnote to a legend. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
What could have served as a colorful episode in a more expansive film about the famed singer has instead become the premise of a mildly entertaining but overextended road movie that doesn't succeed on either dramatic or comedic terms. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
The best thing about the whole sorry enterprise is the soundtrack, which features choice tunes by Bruce Springsteen, Starsailor and, of course, Parsons himself. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Knoxville, in his first dramatic role, does what he can with script and direction that aggressively eschew any insight into Kaufman's grief. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyJohn Patterson
Irish director David Caffrey and English screenwriter Jeremy Drysdale have, respectively, zero sense of pace and a tin-eared grasp of period speech, and together fail either to let us care about their characters or to create any sense of a living era. Read full review
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