Critic Reviews

Most entertaining comic drama with a great turn by Jamie Bell.

Unlike any coming-of-age movie you've seen before. Equal parts sweet and perverse, this Scottish film is unpredictable in places where it might be twee, and subversively fanciful in others where it might be punishing.

Especially worthwhile for the chemistry between Bell and Myles.

Were it not for its pat resolutions, Mister Foe might deserve a mention alongside such classic psycho-sexual thrillers as "Vertigo" and "Peeping Tom." Instead, Mackenzie has reined in the strangeness to deliver a conventional, if better than average, mystery.

Tip-top performances, led by young British thesp Jamie Bell, and a deftly handled tone reflecting all the title teen's confused emotions make Hallam Foe a viewing delight.

The whole thing's poised uneasily somewhere between urban fairy tale and actual human psychodrama, never really landing in one place or the other.

If the extremity of Hallam's temperament tests the limits of our sympathy as well as our credulity, Mr. Bell's ability to seem by turns sweet and scary prevents us from losing interest entirely.

May not be entirely original or entirely successful, but it's definitely fun to watch.

The emotions are as gritty as the Edinburgh locales, and the sex is dark, urgent, and deeply selfish.

Thanks mainly to Bell's abundant charisma, Hallam makes for a strangely likable antihero.