Critic Reviews

The Spoils Before Dying is almost too well-made at times.

Gleefully absurd and filled with terrific comic performances--Wiig and Rudolph are stand-outs in the first two episodes--The Spoils Before Dying marks another winning offbeat comedy from IFC.

Spoils Before Dying is funnier than “Babylon.” The earlier miniseries spoofed ’40s melodramas, but this year’s model takes a narrower approach, mining the staples of the even more formulaic noir films, capturing the excesses of the hard-boiled dialogue and pushing them just far enough over the edge to knock you out of your chair.

As genre satire, Spoils is amusing. As film study, it's informative. As a viewing experience? Uneven: Sometimes funny, a little more often not.

The Spoils Before Dying is a huge step up, arguably even better than its predecessor, but it could have shed some of the weight and become truly great.

Even when it drags a tad early on, there is always something good coming down the pike.

The Spoils Before Dying fluctuates wildly from very clever to somewhat exhausting, but it gets better as it goes along, or perhaps I just got accustomed to its unique sense of humor.

The Spoils Before Dying, which lampoons Hollywood's classic films noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, is a much more assured and accomplished piece of filmmaking. But it's not nearly as wonderfully original or manic as its predecessor.

It is in some respects a three-hour sketch, but one made with attention to detail and an effective emotional through-line.

The Spoils Before Dying requires some time and in return offers some rewards.