The Golden Glove
Strand Releasing | Release Date: September 27, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
38
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
5
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
ConsequenceDan CaffreyOct 3, 2019
The Golden Glove definitely isn’t for everyone, and even when divorced from its more transgressive scenes, it’s not exactly a pleasant viewing experience. But for those not repulsed to the point of leaving the theater, there’s a lonely, human heart at its center. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarOct 3, 2019
Dassler’s personification of the real-life infamous and misogynistic character — his walk, his speech patterns — consistently startles. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeSep 23, 2019
Whatever pleasure there is to be found in watching a film like The Golden Glove is in the intellectualizing, and the film does prompt a series of provocative questions about the implicit contract between artist and audience. Read full review
60
CineVueRory O’ConnorFeb 14, 2019
Were it not for these overwrought provocations The Golden Glove could have been Akin’s most accomplished work in years. Aesthetically speaking it remains a marvel. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 27, 2019
Most true crime fans know that the real stories that have enraptured them in film and television are much crueler and grosser than their fictionalized counterpart. If Akin’s goal is merely to pull away that curtain, it ultimately feels like a hollow unveiling. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerSep 25, 2019
As played with startlingly veracity by Jonas Dassler, there's nothing romantic about him: a deformed nose, shuffling gait, slack-jawed and with a misaligned eye, he looks exactly like the man responsible for the deaths of at least four women in 1970s Hamburg. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 14, 2019
Apart from its grisliness, its hopelessness, and its pointlessness, what strikes you most about this true-crime movie is its brownness. Read full review
40
Screen DailyWendy IdeFeb 14, 2019
Perhaps the question is not whether the film needed to be so relentlessly grim, but rather whether it needed to be made at all. Read full review
37
TheWrapMichael NordineSep 26, 2019
The whole affair feels, quite simply, icky in a way that superior projects like “Zodiac” and “Memories of Murder” never do; to his movie’s detriment, Akin seems more interested in merely depicting what happened than taking a stab at why. Read full review
30
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergSep 26, 2019
Akin may deserve credit for not flinching from the grotesque; other serial-killer-adjacent entertainments, like “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Zodiac” or “Mindhunter,” tend to concentrate on the cerebral mechanics of crime solving. But sordid details, undermined by snickers, aren’t in themselves illuminating. Read full review
30
VarietyGuy LodgeFeb 14, 2019
The Golden Glove may not celebrate its subject, but the intimate examination it offers him is itself a privilege — one for which this ugly, unenquiring film scarcely makes a case. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungFeb 14, 2019
On some level, Fritz’s story is compulsive viewing, only you wish you weren’t there. Read full review
30
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 14, 2019
The Golden Glove is, in the most basic sense, well constructed. It’s also the kind of movie you may end up wishing you’d never seen. Even hardcore Akin devotees should proceed with caution, and be ready for disillusionment. The craftsmanship is there. But Akin’s judgment has gone AWOL, and with it, his heart. Read full review
25
The Film StageEd FranklFeb 14, 2019
Akin has made the true story of a repulsive, grotesque serial killer into a repulsive, grotesque movie, a calamitous misfire for a critical darling of recent German cinema. Read full review
25
IndieWireDavid EhrlichFeb 14, 2019
For better or worse, Akin’s eye remains a remarkable thing, as he arranges even the most emptily nihilistic parts of The Golden Glove with the gravitas of arresting visual geometry, and casts every role to sick perfection. It’s just his vision that seems to be the problem. Read full review
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