Veteran actors such as Danny Glover and Walton Goggins bring much-needed flavor to Diablo.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
On the surface, Diablo would seem to have all of the proper ingredients for a rollicking retro Western, yet its sights are set a bit higher, which inspires both admiration for its moxie and disappointment that its script and direction aren’t up to the challenge.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri
By the time the film works up to its finale, what secrets it wants to reveal to us have become fairly obvious. But they still carry a dark charge; Diablo’s ultimate grisliness is impressive in its own way. And it might have worked, had the film not asked entirely too much of its young lead.
It inelegantly attempts to infuse a standard revenge western with the gravitas of a war veteran's coming-home odyssey.
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Without that sort of compelling figure at its center, Diablo feels far more like a pastiche than the real deal.
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
Directed to resemble rather than act, Eastwood comes across as stiff and unemotive, though Diablo doesn’t even have the sense to let its star get upstaged by the overqualified supporting cast.
RogerEbert.com by Odie Henderson
Its plot is an unholy blending of “Taken," “The Searchers” and "Angel Heart." As befitting a January release, it’s also an early candidate for the 2016 worst movies list.
The Playlist by Oktay Ege Kozak
With his second feature, Roeck shows that he’s a talented and patient genre storyteller, even though his film’s rather flat cinematography and low budget doesn’t match his obviously more grandiose vision.
A violent and grimly obvious frontier thriller that Clint Eastwood might have made during his Spaghetti Days.