Ballad of a Small Player

"Incongruously jaunty tone in a failed attempt to wring laughs out of this abundantly awful man."

"Entertaining but ultimately an elegant con itself."

"Lurches through a series of baffling plot holes."

"Puts its chips on the star’s ability to play a high-roller sprinting toward rock bottom. Smart bet."

"A tiring mishandling of what this story could be."

"Not much substance to be found underneath the consciously cheap glamour."

"Doesn’t juggle genres so much as it careens out of control between them."

"Lacks the fundamental human insight to make it a winner."

"To Farrell’s great credit that he avoids following Berger all the way to the top and over."

"Stubbornly unwilling to delve deeper than its attention-starved aesthetic."