Infamous (2006) Critic Reviews

The pleasure of Infamous is in its gallery of larger-than-life portrayals.Read the full review

The added value that writer-director Douglas McGrath has in mind is gossip -- and a goggly interest in gossip becomes the glittering gimmick of Infamous.Read the full review

The problem is that the first half of Infamous is nowhere near as comic as McGrath intends. Instead the picture gives off a tone of arch stylization that plays as artificial, overwrought and off-putting.Read the full review

"Capote" is the more intellectual of the two films; Infamous is the more emotional. They exist to complement, not eclipse, one another.Read the full review

The film's most pleasing surprise is the beautifully nuanced portrait of Capote's confidante, "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee, by Sandra Bullock. You heard me. Bullock gives the film what it otherwise lacks: the ring of truth.Read the full review

Watch Infamous on its own. It's a worthy film in its own right, with its own virtues.Read the full review

Infamous gives you the unique opportunity to see how two sets of filmmakers can take exactly the same story, make extremely tough though different choices in emphasis and tone and achieve brilliant movies.Read the full review

Less a parable of literary ethics than a showcase of literary personality, and it is in the end more touching than troubling.Read the full review

Ultimately, the problem with Infamous isn't that it revisits Capote's turf--it's that it does the same things well, and leaves the same unsatisfying holes.Read the full review