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Reversal of Fortune
Warner Bros.

Reversal of Fortune reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 93 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.1 out of 10
based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 13 votes
Read user comments
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MPAA RATING: R

Starring Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Ron Silver, Annabella Sciorra, Uta Hagen, Fisher Stevens, Jack Gilpin, and Christine Baranski

Jeremy Irons plays socialite Claus von Bulow, seeking legal exoneration in the most sensational attempted murder scandal of the 1980s. (Warner Bros.)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Nicholas Kazan
Alan M. Dershowitz (book)
 
DIRECTED BY: Barbet Schroeder  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: March 13, 2001 
Video: June 26, 1991 
Theatrical: October 17, 1990 
RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

Jeremy Irons won the best Actor Oscar at the 1991 Academy Awards. The film also received Academy Award nomiations for Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Jeremy Iron won the 1991 Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Entertainment Weekly Glenn Kenny
Funny and scary, Reversal is a tour de force for Schroeder, who examines the idle rich, the intricacies of the legal system, and the imperatives of morality concisely but with unmatched brio.
100
Washington Post Rita Kempley
This engrossing mystery-comedy peeks through the keyholes of the rich and infamous in a manner both droll and delicious.
Read Full Review
100
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The juxtaposition of liberal Jewish attorney Dershowitz (Silver) and von Bulow working together on the latter's defense makes for some engagingly offbeat drama, with some interesting insights into the legal process.
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100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is a surprisingly entertaining film - funny, wicked, sharp-tongued and devious. It does not solve the case, nor intend to. I am afraid it only intends to entertain.
Read Full Review
100
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Barbet Schroeder directed the ingeniously made film, which weaves fact, hypothesis, and conjecture into a harrowing yet continually gripping and often highly amusing narrative. [12 Oct 1990]
100
The New York Times Vincent Canby
What makes it so instructively entertaining is the pivotal character of Claus von Bulow, played by Jeremy Irons within an inch of his professional life. It's a fine, devastating performance, affected, mannerly, edgy, though seemingly ever in complete control. [17 Oct 1990]
100
San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
The comic contrast between the genteel snobbery of von Bulow, a Danish aristocrat, and Dershowitz's dry contempt for his well-tailored client is treated with understated but stinging wit in Nicholas Kazan's brilliant script. [9 Nov 1990]
100
Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson
The performances of Close and Silver are flawless, but it is Irons' portrait that remains behind, an enigmatic after-image… Reversal of Fortune is a delectable tour through facets of the lives of the rich and famous that Robin Leach wouldn't touch with a forked stick. [17 Oct 1990]
100
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
What makes it such a mesmerizing, wickedly witty entertainment is the revealing portrait it paints of an era in which everyone is presumed guilty where greed is concerned... It's an often chilly movie, but the chill cuts to the bone.
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100
Time Richard Corliss
A marvelously sad and funny docucomedy. [22 Oct 1990]
90
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Irons, busily offset by Silver, gleefully choreographed by Schroeder, gives the picture its real bravura reason for being. [19 Nov 1990]
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott
Mesmerizing.
Read Full Review
88
USA Today Mike Clark
If Silver is superb, Irons is transcendent. As some forgotten comic once said of George Sanders: A grapefruit wouldn't dare squirt in his eye. [17 Oct 1990]
88
Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr
Irons' Von Bulow is easily the most attractive and entertaining movie heavy since James Mason's villain in ''North by Northwest,'' a figure with whom he shares a taste for elegant homes and wry understatement. [17 Oct 1990]
80
Empire Robyn Karney
An intriguing and absorbing movie, reeking of class and quite packed with powerhouse performances.
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80
Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon
What's fun about this movie is the sight of Mr. Irons's Claus stalking the mansion like a tall, skinny ghost smiling at the perverseness of it all. [18 Oct 1990, p.A14(E)]
80
TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)
Irons's canny performance dominates the film. He plays the role with apparent frankness and dignity rather than melodramatic villainy.
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60
The New Yorker Pauline Kael
Dershowitz's life-enhancing scenes are flatulent, and they're dishonest: the movie seems to be putting us down for enjoying the scandal satire it's dishing up. [19 Nov 1990]

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Brendan H. gave it a9:
I've watched RofV six times and I never get tired of it. Never get tired of Ron Silver's vastly underrated performance, Jeremy Irons' introverted despair, Glenn Close's intoxicating mix of rage and ennui. The film confronts our assumptions of the "whodunnit" and turns them on their head. In RoV, as in life, we can't always come to definite conclusions to what happened, or why; whether a man is good, evil, or lives in some point in between. Doesn't deserve to be mentioned with "The Godfather", but I love this movie. I think I'll watch it another six times.

Hansel H. gave it a7:
No. 9 on the all time metacritic list? No way. Not a bad movie. But highly overrated.

Eric S. gave it a5:
What am I missing here? How is this movie a 93 and one of the highest scores on Metacritic?? This is an AVERAGE movie people. The screenplay is poor. I found myself totally uninterested in the outcome of this movie. And how can such a simple plot be so complicated to understand? As for Glenn Close, this was one of her more disappointing acting jobs if you ask me. Notice how she speaks with a British accent during narration, but in the actual acting scenes she loses the accent completely. That was very annoying to me. Oh and the musical score is just forgettable. It was paper thin and did nothing for the movie, which could have used some intensification. I do give this movie a 5 because Irons is stellar as usual, but the real star of this film is Ron Silver.

Mike N. gave it a 7:
Irons is great. Like Hopkins in Silence of Lambs, he comes across as so intelligent and witty that he makes you like von Bulow, in spite of the fact that you really, really don't want to like Claus von Bulow. Close is excellent too. Silver does a good job, but the Dershowitz sections have an annoying "made for TV movie" quality about them that brings down the whole tone of the picture.

Pat C. gave it a 7:
96? No, it's not that good.

Rod P. gave it a 5:
Is it fair to rate this film so lowly when I found myself only occasionally interested enough to raise my head from latest issue of The Economist? Perhaps not. Needless to say Reversal of Fortune, was for me, an entirely underwhelming experience. Irons and Close are great - no surprise there. The clear weakness was Dershowitz and his little friends. Oh dear. Not only are the characters painful, but the performances are, without exception, unmemorable. Having seen the film on the strength of the American reviews listed above I can only begin to speculate that in 1990 the "Amercian justice fantasy overwhelms reality malaise" swept unabated across the writing community in virtually all American cities. Try this film again in 2003 and I think we'd be looking at 50/100.

Yoon C. gave it a 6:
Has fine performances by Irons and Close. However, we all know what a egomaniacal public relations masturbator Alan Dershawitz is. Does anyone really need to lend him a hand? Throughout the movie Dershawitz acts like he's taken on a financially rewarding case to pay for the defense of two black kids facing death row. In reality, the kids were white but this is the kind of lowly manipulation(and prejudice--is it nobler to save black than white kids' lives?)this rank movie revels in. The funniest thing is the only truly likable character is the rich creep played by Irons.

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