The Clan
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: March 18, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaApr 21, 2016
Trapero handles the movie's pacing with a masterful ease. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinMar 17, 2016
Francella and Lanzani are excellent, not only in their charged moments together, but throughout this nervy and provocative picture. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Julia CooperMar 24, 2016
Trapero reveals the ways in which truth can be much stranger, more tragic and confused, than fiction. Read full review
85
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMar 22, 2016
Unsettling and bizarrely humorous, The Clan is the sort of film that ups the ante of any movie that dares open with those dreaded five words: “Based on a true story.” Read full review
83
The Film StageZhuo-Ning SuMar 16, 2016
It’s true that none of this is particularly groundbreaking and that, as hinted above, the limitations of a biographical film are still palpable towards the end, but the pure, visceral satisfaction of seeing an exciting story expertly told cannot be denied either. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 13, 2016
The Clan shouldn’t be as enjoyable as it is. But it’s a delight to be in the hands of a storyteller who can impress you with his stylistic bravado (one sequence cuts together a nasty death with ecstatic sex) while never losing sight of the suffering at the story’s heart. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 17, 2016
The cleverest and most troubling aspect of the film is its empathy. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 18, 2015
Effortless tracking shots, spasms of sickening violence and a perfectly pitched jukebox soundtrack are all conspicuously and stylishly deployed, sometimes all at once. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 18, 2015
Argentine powerhouse Pablo Trapero (“Carancho,” “White Elephant”) takes a case so upsetting many refused to believe it was possible and retells it in ghastly detail from the p.o.v. of the perpetrators in The Clan, a muscular, Hollywood-style account of the Puccio fiasco. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 24, 2016
On one level, The Clan is an accomplished but not terribly original genre exercise — another story about amorality run amok, given an extra jolt from its real-life roots and heightened political context. What sets the film apart are the performances. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 22, 2015
The strained, strange relationship between father and son ultimately becomes the emotional center of The Clan, culminating with an astonishing closing shot guaranteed to induce startled gasps. It’s a great, jarring moment that is the work of a filmmaker clearly in love with his craft — and a flavor for the darker side of human nature. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 18, 2015
It's Arquimedes who emerges as the film's most indelible character, aided by Francella's fabulously icy performance. Lacking even the warmth of a Don Vito, Arquimedes comes across not as a man who does everything for his family, but as a man who expects his family to do everything, even damn themselves, for him and his twisted, heartless, self-centered worldview. Read full review
70
Village VoiceA WolfeMar 16, 2016
Billed as a thriller, The Clan doesn't quite thrill but instead instills a slow-building dread of the inevitable. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijSep 18, 2015
There are no false notes in the ensemble but Francella, with dyed grey eyebrows, and Lanzini, saddled with black sideburns the size of dead mice, are clearly best in show. And the film finally gives audiences the long-awaited confrontation between the two in a strong sequence toward the end. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughMar 31, 2016
It’s a mordant if unwieldy thriller examining how evil not only becomes the norm, but a virtue. Read full review
63
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeMar 17, 2016
Swift, confident, and exceptionally nasty, this Argentine film bears roughly the same relationship to the Martin Scorsese of “Goodfellas” that Brian De Palma does to, well, all of Hitchcock. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 18, 2015
There is something of Scorsese to this rise and fall of a criminal family and Trapero crams The Clan with life. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubBenjamin MercerMar 22, 2016
Trapero...often demonstrates his technical mastery here. But as a storyteller, he’s unfortunately less successful. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineGuido PellegriniMar 13, 2016
The Pablo Trapero film's parallels are drawn so bluntly that they lose all suggestive force, since there's little left to suggest. Read full review
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