89
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- A highly stylized tale.
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineAt its best, Force achieves a style at once brutal and poetic, documentarian and noir.
- 100Chicago ReaderChicago ReaderA poetic, terse, beautifully exact, and highly personal re-creation of the American underworld, with an unpunctuated Joycean screenplay by Polonsky that is perhaps unique in the American cinema. This is film noir at its best.
- 100USA TodayMike ClarkUSA TodayMike ClarkPearson's scenes with Garfield are among the most supercharged ever. [28 May 2004, p.6E]
- 90Time OutTime OutOne of the key films of the '40s.
- 80The New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe New York TimesBosley CrowtherA dynamic crime-and-punishment drama, brilliantly and broadly realized.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleRuthe SteinSan Francisco ChronicleRuthe SteinForce of Evil is a more thoughtful kind of film noir than we are used to but still employs the traditional black-and-white contrasts and shadows.
- 63Slant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierSlant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierGarfield’s likably unlikable protagonist provides Force of Evil with a semblance of cohesiveness, even if the film often feels like the product of dueling fetishes and pet symbols.
- 50Force of Evil fails to develop the excitement hinted at in the title. Makers apparently couldn't decide on the best way to present an expose of the numbers racket, winding up with neither fish nor fowl as far as hard-hitting racketeer meller is concerned. A poetic, almost allegorical, interpretation keeps intruding on the tougher elements of the plot. This factor adds no distinction and only makes the going tougher.