The Riot Club
IFC Films | Release Date: March 27, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
12
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The New York TimesStephen HoldenMar 26, 2015
Lone Scherfig (“An Education”), the Danish filmmaker who directed the movie from a screenplay by Ms. Wade, has coaxed wonderfully nasty performances from a young cast. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 14, 2014
Scherfig approaches the milieu with shrewd anthropological wit, amplifying Wade’s research with her own keen outsider insights — this on top of an expert grasp of tension and tone as the club’s initial allure turns to anxiety and disgust. Read full review
80
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 14, 2014
The Riot Club hands its audience a ticket, as well as a free pass to pour scorn over proceedings. That's a double-bill which should prove pretty irresistible. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyMar 27, 2015
There’s a flicker of déjà vu seeing Max Irons step into the role of a posh Oxford University student in The Riot Club. Irons has inherited the cheekbones and silky voice of his father, Jeremy Irons. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsGraham FullerMar 26, 2015
Don’t bother with The Riot Club unless you enjoy watching filthy rich young Englishmen conduct an orgy of violence while vilifying the poor. Read full review
60
Village VoiceInkoo KangMar 24, 2015
Director Lone Scherfig’s stagings of these suspenseful set pieces are masterful, but the rest of the thriller is a fairly predictable manifesto against Britain’s de facto oligarchy. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeSep 16, 2014
Wade’s dialogue is totally convincing, all in-jokes and boarding school banter... The trouble with The Riot Club is that dramatically it never quite comes together. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerSep 15, 2014
Well played across the board, The Riot Club is an entertaining glimpse into the dark side of privilege. Yet it lacks the richness and insight to be anything more. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 14, 2014
Some of the supporting performances are so hammily spiteful and giggly they let the side down, but the film is perfectly cast in its main roles. Read full review
60
CineVueBen NicholsonSep 14, 2014
It makes for entertaining viewing but its power is undermined by a ultimate lack of insight amongst the debauchery. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenApr 9, 2015
Although the performances are uniformly on point and the dialogue is tartly British, the film ultimately fails to earn its riotous stripes. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoMar 27, 2015
It’s a film that seems to have no further point than to remind us that some powerful jerks were once powerful jerk kids. Point taken, but it’s not cinematically satisfying. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 14, 2014
Laura Wade’s adaptation of her hit play, Posh, has sacrificed much of its savage comedy en route to the screen, and while the dark drama is never dull, its portrait of upper-crust entitlement run amok is seldom surprising either. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMar 25, 2015
Boys will be boys and wealthy a--holes will be wealthy a--holes in The Riot Club, an alleged cautionary tale that revels in bad behavior for nearly two hours before finally offering up a stern “tsk, tsk, tsk.” Unlike the great gangster and outlaw movies, however, this unpleasant, moralistic film doesn’t succeed in making transgression look cathartically appealing. Read full review
42
The PlaylistNikola GrozdanovicSep 14, 2014
All of that star-making and directorial grace Scherfig possesses is substituted for a bludgeoning attempt at provoking the British elite into taking a long hard look at themselves through a cracked mirror. She retains her confrontational sensibilities with none of the subtlety, and hammers a single message to mind-numbing effect. Read full review
40
The DissolveMatthew DessemMar 25, 2015
The Riot Club was clearly made by people who understand that a film that revels in conspicuous consumption doesn’t magically become anti-greed by hastily grafting on a moral. But instead, they’ve made a polemic that suddenly, unconvincingly insists it’s a character study. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithMar 25, 2015
Despising the British upper class is so utterly common, as we see in The Riot Club, a farcically heavy-handed attempted satiric takedown of an elite group of Oxford students. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineClayton DillardMar 22, 2015
The thinly sketched characters of the film are numerous and inconsequential, with director Lone Scherfig giving sparse attention to humanizing or deepening them. Read full review
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