Summer of Sam Critic Reviews

Lee at his best, a virtuoso piece of filmmaking that's stylish, substantial, and rich in detail.Read the full review

Lee has a wealth of material here, and the film tumbles through it with exuberance.Read the full review

The most refreshing thing about Summer of Sam is that it doesn't try to impose a moral or define the limits of its story.Read the full review

It is a dark, violent, sexually explicit motion picture that will surely offend timid viewers.Read the full review

Summer of Sam is never less than absorbing but feels just a bit like yesterday's news, both narratively and cinematically.Read the full review

This film, like the dazzling but many-tentacled "He Got Game" before it, makes up in fury much of what it lacks in form.Read the full review

Hobbled by a multiplicity of narrative lines and superfluous, often stereotypical characters, the movie suffers from a lack of both focus and passion.Read the full review

A glum and unpleasant experience, caught between what it wants to do and how it has chosen to do it.Read the full review

Spike Lee is a virtuoso filmmaker, a wizard at selling a sequence, but he'll never make an entirely coherent movie until he learns to go deeper into his subjects instead of wider with them.Read the full review