Palmetto Critic Reviews

Palmetto has a satisfyingly deceptive plot that ultimately takes one too many turns.Read the full review

The film, adapted from a novel by James Hadley Chase, aspires to out-noir every other film noir that has been lumped under that popular term, including "The Big Sleep" (which it resembles), in plot trickery and steaminess.Read the full review

The movie has elements of the genre and lacks only pacing and plausibility. You wait through scenes that unfold with maddening deliberation, hoping for a payoff--and when it comes, you feel cheated.Read the full review

There's no buildup and little shape. Scenes are strong, but the movie as a whole flags.Read the full review

There's not a moment of originality in the entire motion picture.Read the full review

Surprises are reserved for the final half-hour, at which point the slow-paced Palmetto has long since fossilized as a routine exercise in ceiling-fan, sweaty-forehead noir-by-numbers.Read the full review

This adaptation of James Hadley Chase's "Just Another Sucker" isn't so bad you'd want to roast it over the coals, but it ain't much good either.Read the full review

Palmetto, directed by the German genius Schlondorff, who memorably brought "The Tin Drum" to the screen, somehow never quite finds the right line through the materials.Read the full review