The reviews lean positive, with praise clustering around Michael Douglas’s performance as a man consumed by frustration and rage. His restraint and intensity give the urban anger a disturbing human presence, even for critics uneasy with the film’s politics. Supporters also value Joel Schumacher’s mixture of dark humour, suspense and discomfort, finding more here than a straightforward vigilante story. Several see a pointed treatment of alienation and social anxiety.
The split is wide over how much that treatment explains. Admirers acknowledge familiar plotting, moral loose ends and a loss of momentum in the final act. Detractors question the film’s honesty more fundamentally: The New Yorker sees crude revenge dressed as satire, while the Los Angeles Times finds simplistic scapegoating rather than insight into urban problems. The Guardian credits the parallel police storyline with greater sophistication, but finds the whole undermined by melodrama and a lack of conviction.