Critic Reviews
43
Metascore
Mixed or Average
positive
0(0%)
mixed
9(90%)
negative
1(10%)
Showing 10 Critic Reviews
60
A velvety-smooth looking romantic mystery melodrama that has far less to do with life than with other movies. It's clever but chilly in the way of something with a mechanical heart.
60
It comes as almost a shock to see a modern suspense picture that's as literate, well acted and beautifully made as Still Of The Night. Despite its many virtues, however, Robert Benton's film [from a story by him and David Newman] has its share of serious flaws, mainly in the area of plotting.
50
The writer-director Robert Benton is unquestionably intelligent, but he seems to have misplaced his sense of humor, and this murder mystery set in Manhattan shows almost no evidence of the nasty streak that's part of the pleasure of a good thriller, or of the manipulative skills that might give us a few tremors.
50
Although Benton's plentiful homages to Alfred Hitchcock are well handled, the major problem with this talky picture is that there's plenty of suspense but not enough mystery.
50
Benton builds the yarn carefully, drawing us into a web of suspense with a string of deftly timed surprises. But after a while, you get the feeling you've seen this all before. [02 Dec 1982, p.19]
50
Still of the Night is a restful thriller, soft and dreamy and largely undisturbing. Like the wee hours themselves, the movie seems to stretch its time beyond the normal frame of minutes; here, 90 of them go by at the pace of an entire evening. [17 Dec 1982, p.D14]
40
Benton's movie is eventually suffocated, perhaps by the gloss of the Manhattan auction world in which it is set. The plotting becomes rushed and implausible, while Streep falls into the breathless clichés of screen neuroses.
40
Still of the Night is a red herring all its own. It's a mystery that isn't a mystery, a thriller that isn't a thriller. What's more bothersome, the corpse is the most animated member of the cast. [17 Dec 1982, p.19]
40
A thriller in which a psychiatrist solves the murder by interpreting a dream? There hasn't been such a dime-store Freudian gimmick since the days when there were dimestores. [22 Nov 1982, p.118]
30
Still of the Night emerges as not only failed, synthetic Hitchcock but also failed, synthetic slasher and failed, synthetic love story. [18 Dec 1982, p.C1]
