74
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertIt is not filled with quick cutting or gimmicky editing, but Jerry Schatzberg's direction is so confident that we cover the ground effortlessly. We meet the characters, we get to know the world.
- 80The New YorkerRichard BrodyThe New YorkerRichard BrodySchatzberg doesn’t romanticize addicts’ troubles; with a tender but unsparing eye, he spins visual variations on shambling degradation and transient relief.
- 75Slant MagazineSlant MagazineRemembered mainly as the neophyte Pacino’s launching pad into Godfather stardom, the modestly scaled, harrowing Panic in Needle Park has over the decades proven to be nearly as influential as Coppola’s blockbuster, setting a cinematic template later used by Drugstore Cowboy, Requiem for a Dream, and a good deal of Sundance Channel fodder.
- It is a nightmare world view, but it is a world view, and The Panic in Needle Park never pretends that it is subject to moral condemnations, or to easy cure or the insights of urban sociology.
- 70Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanWinn pretty much plays it as it lays—her obvious acting works with her character’s weak sense of self. Pacino, however, is a force of nature.
- 50Time OutTime OutPacino, as the boy, proves that he didn't need Coppola to make him act, but Kitty Winn is less satisfactory, and the film is finally subject to an iron law of diminishing returns after its plot plumbs the depths and can find nothing to do except batter us some more.
- 50TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineSupposedly a no-holds-barred look at the seamy heroin subculture, The Panic in Needle Park is really little more than a boring romance between two dullards intercut with close-ups of filthy needles being jabbed into scarred veins.