Sleuth (2007) Critic Reviews

Caine, who has never been much for the stage, is a superb screen actor, so good his master classes on acting for the camera are on DVD. Here, dry and clipped, biting and savage, he goes for the kill.Read the full review

It's like "Deathtrap" crossed with "Cribs" as staged by Stanley Kubrick.Read the full review

Despite top-flight acting from Michael Caine and Jude Law, it loses its grip in the third act and let's the air out of what might have been a memorably gripping film.Read the full review

Language this lethal has all but disappeared from the movies, and it's an unmitigated pleasure to observe Caine and Law attack it with such ferocity. Sleuth is nasty fun.Read the full review

While the entire premise of Sleuth is a gimmick, having Michael Caine and Jude Law remake the 1972 adaptation of Anthony Shaffer's Tony Award-winning play heightens the gimmick quotient.Read the full review

The 1972 movie was better paced and presented a superior story but this one has its own pleasures. It's an interesting failure - a film that works more successfully as a study of technique and writing than as a motion picture.Read the full review

The new version is a shiny piece of hardware that might as well be called "Sleuth 2.0," and it's exactly what you would expect from Pinter: very clever, extremely cold. Maliciously entertaining, too, until the halfway point, when you suddenly start wondering why anyone should care.Read the full review

Sleuth"is that rare film that would have been better longer. You're not through looking at Caine and Law when the final credits roll.Read the full review

Little more than a sleek, stylish stunt.Read the full review