60
Like Chronicle, it's a fresh spin on the high-school flick. Unlike Chronicle, its execution never quite matches its ideas.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
42
The message, like the filmmaking, seems fuzzy and unfocused.
91
The story transitions from a believable portrait of young culture junkies into a showcase of Matt's burgeoning rage so well that it practically implicates viewers in the process.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
The Dirties is as provocative as it is sloppily messy in its themes.
90
Los Angeles Times by Inkoo Kang
A masterful blend of black humor and queasy dread.
100
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Remarkable as much for its insights as for its audacity, The Dirties approaches school violence with a comic veneer that slowly shades into deep darkness.
20
Technically cruddy and tiresome in its we’ve-seen-a-lot-of-movies dialogue.
50
Ultimately, all the metafictions and social commentary are too vague to have any meaning, beyond giving Johnson a foundational justification for this movie. But while The Dirties is in some ways appalling, it’s also effective.
20
This sloppy, button-pushing black comedy reveals a crew desperately in need of counseling — less in anger management than in the fundamentals of screenwriting, camerawork and structure.
80
Village Voice by Zachary Wigon
Matthew Johnson's The Dirties explores high school violence from a refreshingly original angle.