Sympathy for Delicious

Though Bloom feels like he dropped in from another movie, it all spins on screenwriter Thornton's charismatic performance, which also accounts for the survival instinct inside the film.

Ruffalo gives voice to the film's unironic point of view.

The character's miraculous gift never plays as more than a melodramatic contrivance-it's a gimmick, not an outgrowth of faith. The movie reaches for the heart, but only comes back with a balloon filled with fake blood and chicken livers.

An odd, confusing, ugly and mostly indigestible movie about religious hysteria and rock 'n' roll-two subjects I find about as interesting as opening a tattoo parlor. I wish I liked the movie half as much as I like the actor.

This semiexpressionist fantasia is a botch.

Despite the powerful sense of place, Sympathy for Delicious unwinds a narrative thread that grows increasingly tattered and flimsy.

This offbeat effort proves more admirable for its ambition than anything else, as the uneasy mix of satire, allegory, grittiness and redemption never quite jells.