64
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The New York TimesCaryn JamesThe New York TimesCaryn JamesLittle Odessa might have been a great film. Instead, it is an exceptionally good one, the kind that suggests the start of a powerful career.
- 88ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliLittle Odessa is an extremely complex motion picture, layered with powerful themes and fascinating characters.
- 80Time OutTime OutThe film has a thesis: hitmen must have psychopathy on their CVs; but even bad guys have souls. It's Roth's tough job to illustrate this, which, in his finest performance to date, he does magnificently.
- 80VarietyDavid RooneyVarietyDavid RooneyA highly charged, coolly assured directorial bow graced by riveting work from a trio of accomplished leads, Little Odessa immediately etches a firm place on the map for 25-year-old New York newcomer James Gray.
- 78Austin ChronicleSteve DavisAustin ChronicleSteve DavisLike something by Tolstoy or Dostoyevski, but -- of course -- on a much smaller, less ambitious scale, it is a work that weighs on your mind long after you leave it.
- 60Los Angeles TimesPeter RainerLos Angeles TimesPeter RainerGray hasn't filled out the emotional terrain he's surveyed here. He hasn't quite grown into the emotions he wants to put on screen. When he does, he'll come up with something lasting.
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertIt seemed to me that the movie had raised too many serious issues to turn into a visual exercise at the end. It's a set piece when a dramatic scene is needed.
- 50San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSince the hit-man career is probably one of the most familiar non-law enforcement careers in films, it should come as no surprise that Little Odessa has nothing new to say about it.
- 42Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanRoth, a great actor, is reduced to a walking sneer, and the picture creeps along in a series of handsome but painfully languorous hazy-shade-of-winter tableaux.