Shallow Grave (1995) Critic Reviews

Shallow Grave, a tar-black comedy that zings along on a wave of visual and scripting inventiveness.Read the full review

This is exactly the kind of weird, sardonic texture the movie is aiming for - and unfortunately, most of it occurs in the first half of the story.Read the full review

In his big-screen directing debut, British film maker Danny Boyle demonstrates wit, intelligence and economy of style.Read the full review

Boyle's characters, too, are young and fresh and promisingly rude - especially McGregor's Alex - but they become less and less interesting as the movie progresses.Read the full review

Taken as a whole, Shallow Grave is a reasonably enjoyable (for those captivated by this sort of thing) black comedy/noir thriller that justifies at least a portion of the praise being heaped upon it from overseas.Read the full review

A sky-high level of misanthropy overwhelms his film in ways that prove more sour than droll, despite the presence of skillful actors and a bizarrely enveloping plot.Read the full review

Black comedy and film noir are around one another smartly and wickedly in Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave, a tense, twisty Scottish-made thriller that's going to break out of Glasgow in a big way. [24 Feb 1995]Read the full review

This clever thriller has the juiced-up, hyperactive feel of a rock video. [07 Mar 1995]Read the full review

Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge (who is a physician!) keep the action spurting forward, but their approach is oblique. We seem to be catching the odds and ends of scenes; it's as if the filmmakers wanted to make a movie in which all the expected high points were skimped.Read the full review