|
100
|
San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
A buoyant, picaresque farce that hums with goofy energy and mines enough ideas, jokes and setups for three movies of this description.
|
|
100
|
Time Richard Schickel
Upon all these folks, writer-director David O. Russell turns a bland, almost anthropological eye. Nothing surprises him and nothing outrages him, except for bed-and-breakfast lodgings, about which, at last, his movie tells the terrible truth. [1 April 1996, p. 72]
|
|
90
|
The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
Mr. Russell's wonderfully mad odyssey of a movie, in which a man sets out to find his biological parents and winds up meeting more weirdos than Alice found down the rabbit hole.
|
|
90
|
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Flirting With Disaster, like that Energizer Bunny, keeps on going. But in this case, the perpetual motion is a deliciously hysterical rush.
|
|
90
|
Washington Post Hal Hinson
Writer-director David O. Russell's exhilarating follow-up to "Spanking the Monkey," is even wilder, giddier and more unpredictable than that irreverent debut.
|
|
88
|
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Has the sort of headlong confidence the genre requires. Russell finds the strong central line all screwball begins with, the seemingly serious mission or quest, and then throws darts at a map of the United States as he creates his characters.
|
|
88
|
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Not as corrosive as Russell's debut feature, "Spanking the Monkey," it's just as wild, just as strange, and even funnier.
|
|
78
|
Austin Chronicle Steve Davis
Taking the concept of the dysfunctional family to a degree that might even boggle Leo Tolstoy's mind, Flirting With Disaster is every son or daughter's nightmare... multiplied.
|
|
75
|
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Flirting is a little too weighed down with stage business to soar. But episode for episode, it's one of the ha-ha-funniest movies currently around.
|
|
70
|
TV Guide
Highly unlikely plot complications never once threaten to throw this remarkably amusing film off-track, thanks to the narrative intelligence of writer-director David O. Russell, the only member of the filmmaking bratpack who seems to understand how movies work and why they entertain.
|
