Critical Condition: Deadwood: The Movie

Deadwood: The Movie | SoHo2, 8.30 Friday

☆☆☆☆ “It’s a perfect, long-delayed swan song that offers satisfying endings for almost every member of the cast while still managing to tell a story that stands on its own: an examination of how American civilisation formed a thin veneer over the ruthlessness that helped create it. As such, Deadwood: The Movie feels like an elegy for the ‘golden age of TV.'” — The Atlantic.

☆☆☆☆ “It’s so good and so satisfying that it’s worth diving back into this brutal, expletive-laden world headfirst and without distraction. Just trust me when I say that you won’t want to miss a single moment of the rare gift we’ve been given, because like the show, Deadwood: The Movie will also be gone too soon.” — TV Guide.

☆☆☆☆ “Like sipping whiskey on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Deadwood: The Movie gradually but deliberately rewards fans who have waited 13 years to find out what happened to our favourite foul-mouthed ne’er-do-wells … The biggest complaint, aside from the endless procession of ancillary characters at times, is in regards to the small cluster of loose ends that linger when the movie concludes.” — Variety.

☆☆☆☆ “Over the course of its 110 minutes, audience reactions are likely to sway from general incredulity (that it’s real at all) to gratitude (that it still feels like Deadwood) to contentment (that the all-time classic drama finally has a real end). I don’t think Deadwood: The Movie is a great movie in its own right or even a great episode of Deadwood, but it’s satisfying, and given what was required, that’s enough.” — The Hollywood Reporter.

☆☆☆☆ “Watching Deadwood: The Movie is like looking at a 19th-century photograph of a wizened historical figure whose heyday was before the invention of photography. It is not the picture we might have gotten in 2007, with one final, full season of Deadwood in its prime. But it is the Deadwood we can get now, and in a way it’s all the more affecting for its willingness to confront the time that cannot be recovered.” — New York Times.