Critic Reviews
69
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
10(71%)
mixed
0(0%)
negative
4(29%)
Showing 14 Critic Reviews
100
Put Roeg's powerful cinematic style on the cultural map.
100
Uncorked in 1970, it's a shocking crime thriller, a time-capsule of Swinging 60s London and a fizzy intellectual headtrip all whisked into one astonishing film.
100
Fuelled by Cammell's whacked-out erudition and lensed with tyro brilliance by Roeg, this hallucinogenic deconstruction of identity writhes with sex, substances, ultraviolence and good ol' rock'n'roll.
100
An amazing film, still a shocker after all these years. [07 Sep 2001, p.C1]
90
Co-directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg—the latter then a top-rank cinematographer making his directorial debut—it begins as a nasty slice of British underworld life, and ends as a psychedelic excursion into insanity.
80
After Ned Kelly, Jagger needed a hit and Performance was it. Although playing a rock star probably wasn't the greatest challenge, he more than holds his own against Fox in a psychedelic classic.
80
Roeg's debut as a director is a virtuoso juggling act which manipulates its visual and verbal imagery so cunningly that the borderline between reality and fantasy is gradually eliminated.
80
There's some great Pinteresque dialogue, and the murky gloom is illuminated with flashes of genius. [07 May 2004, p.15]
80
It's an exhilarating commentary on Swinging London in its dying days and the worlds of popular music and crime, with the disturbing paintings of Francis Bacon and the fascinating fictions of Jorge Luis Borges as influences. [11 Mar 2007, p.14]
63
Performance is a bizarre, disconnected attempt to link the inhabitants of two kinds of London underworlds: pop stars and gangsters. It isn’t altogether successful, largely because it tries too hard and doesn’t pace itself to let its effects sink in.
