Critic Reviews

This hummingbird soars. It has that based-on-a-true-story feel, with all the urgency and verisimilitude of a real-life tale. A sad and visceral indictment of our society under the guise of a thriller, Kim Nguyen’s rousing cinematic elegy will sneak up on you, like its titular moth.

Writer-director Nguyen cleverly unspools the story like a heist film, with Vincent wheeling and dealing every step of the way.

Part thriller, part family drama, part satirical commentary on the way that the pursuit of wealth is a cultural cancer that taints everything it touches, The Hummingbird Project is no less compelling for its odd mishmash of components.

Along the way, Hummingbird offers cogent commentary on the way unbridled avarice drives the search for even the smallest advantage in the cutthroat world of high finance.

The Hummingbird Project — is at once an offbeat comedy and a satisfyingly weird thriller.

Surprise! The Hummingbird Project basically works; it’s intriguing; the actors play it just straight enough to make it feel like a fact-based drama (though it isn’t) with a few darkly comic details.

And so you will get no Scorsesian tracking shots of firecracker trading floors, no giddy frat boy Champagne-shaking antics; this is a slow-boil thriller coursing with melancholy.

Despite esoteric subject matter, writer-director Kim Nguyen (War Witch) has crafted a smartly entertaining and unexpectedly human film with his financial thriller The Hummingbird Project.

As the geological, financial and personal barriers the cousins face grow increasingly absurd, the movie works up a satisfying sweat.

The Hummingbird Project is most of a great movie. Amiable performances and a deft pace combine with high-contrast storytelling, and the results are generally engaging. Sometimes funny, sometimes smart, always watchable. But perhaps the film’s dedication to turning a clever tale into something profound was a miscalculation. Perhaps there were simply better ways to spend the time.