66
Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinFrantic generates its suspense precisely because it appears so reasonable, because it takes such a calm, methodical approach to the maddening events that lure Dr. Walker into the maelstrom.
- 80Los Angeles TimesMichael WilmingtonLos Angeles TimesMichael WilmingtonIn Roman Polanski's Frantic--an elegant, icy thriller about an American doctor chasing his wife's kidnapers through the deadlier byways of Paris--we can tell after 10 minutes that we're in the hands of a superb craftsman.
- 80TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineDirector Polanski, a master of movie atmospherics (e.g., Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby), here creates a hauntingly foreign, forbiddingly stylish Paris that seems to move to the oneiric disco stylings of Grace Jones. Harrison Ford, outstanding as an American innocent abroad, moves persuasively from complacency to confusion, rage, and paranoid desperation in a performance comparable to James Stewart's best work for Hitchcock.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertEven with its excesses, Frantic is a reminder of how absorbing a good thriller can be.
- 75Chicago TribuneGene SiskelChicago TribuneGene SiskelFord`s character is disoriented from the very beginning of the movie, suffering from jet lag, and you can view the movie as one long tourist`s nightmare. Although the suspense never reaches the level of Polanski`s finest work-there are plot holes that are enormous-the film is well made technically and has so many twists and turns that one can`t help but want stick around to see how it turns out. In other words, you have just read a guarded recommendation.
- 70Time Out LondonTime Out LondonPolanski's thriller boasts several superb set pieces, even if it doesn't quite snap shut on the mind the way Chinatown did. Funny and unsettling.
- 70Washington PostDesson ThomsonWashington PostDesson ThomsonFrantic is vintage Polanski, with its relentless paranoia, irony, diffident strangers and nutty cameos. And Polanski forgoes the mood-marshalling Hitchcock cellos for his own brand of good old quiet tension -- here made eerier by Witold Sobocinski's high and low camera angles.
- 60EmpireIan NathanEmpireIan NathanFrantic is Polanski's most satisfying film since Chinatown, and one of the best traditional thrillers to come down the pike in quite some time.
- 50Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumIt opens promisingly, with a fine sense of the disorientation of a monolingual tourist abroad and in trouble. But instead of things building from there, the energy gradually dissipates, and by the time the mystery is solved, it's difficult to care very much.