Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

brehierv This movie isn't for everyone it is very dark, very dirty, and very real. Lee Daniels takes you to a place where most movies don't even dare to show their audiences. The twists and turns that this movie will take you on will keep you wondering what the hell am I going to see next. Outstanding performances from everyone in the cast. This movie should be held to a higher regard.

Spacenaz I don't really even know what the movie was fully about after watching it, I guess the story of Cusack's character and the murders...? I knew nothing about this movie, and vaguely remember seeing some poster with multiple big name actors and I swore one of them was Brad Pitt, so when I started this movie I thought it was a Pitt movie...Well, I was surprised by who was in it, and pleasantly so as each new character was introduced. I like M'Con, I find he does have a place in Hollywood movies. As I've mentioned before I am a fan of Cusack, so it was a surprise when his creepy prisoner character showed up.There are several weird and kind of disturbing parts in this movie. The scene with Cusack and Kidman in the prison was just gross, but apparently it was arousing to old M'Con's character. It felt like it was trying to hard to be dark, and the narration from a mush mouthed and incoherent (literally) Macy Gray was very annoying. I had to strain to understand what she was saying, because she doesn't seem to pronounce her words very well. She acted fairly well in this movie, it's just she was hard to understand. The Paperboy had some strange moments with Cusack in the swamp, and Zac Efron saying the N word, it really wasn't that good. The actors in this movie are all quite good, it's just the poor story and narration that makes this movie a fail. From what others have said repeated viewings help to improve the murkiness of the story and things you may have missed become clearer. I may give this one another shot another time, but for now it stands as a weird one for me. 5/10

Shazam-O The film is visually appealing, most of it anyways. The cast is--or at least should be--great. It's not like there's anything wrong with anyone's performance, it's just the script doesn't allow for them to be great. It's evident The Paperboy is adapted from a novel. The film starts out at a nice pace and then seems to flip through a bunch of pages, that were perhaps covering some background on the characters, setting, etc. It then catches its breath, but just for moment, before jumping forward again. It then seems to skip an entire chapter or two, giving a critical juncture about 3 seconds of screen time.Peter Dexter (author) and Lee Daniels (director) share the screenplay writing credit. Sometimes the originals authors are the worst choice to adapt their work. Who knows, but Daniels as writer and director is the only one to blame for this mess.The end result is a disconnected shambles, a wasted opportunity of what could have been a great film.

donwc1996 I'm giving this film a 10 because I can only marvel at so much talent so utterly misspent in this southern Gothic tale of woe. This film more than anything else demonstrates out clearly out of sync Hollywood is with the world and why ultimately Hollywood will implode on its own madness which apparently has gripped even the most talented. The point of this film apparently is to see just how disgusting it can be so that the audience runs screaming from the theater. There is one disgusting scene after another as though they are competing against one another in a disgust marathon. The fact that the highest paid talent in the world would be seduced by this utterly disgusting script is further proof that something is rotten in Denmark in this case Hollywood.