The Desperate Hours

Ratings & Reviews

SpacePirate

Another phenomenal film by Wyler. Bogey looks weary, probably in the early stages of his cancer, but he kills it throughout and the interplay between he and March is really great as is the dynamic between the 3 prisoners. Tension is thick throughout, culminating w/ dramatic finish thats predictable but nonetheless well done. Supporting cast filled with Oscar noms, so all performances are stellar. 5 stars. Great noir

Bob

It keeps tension without much action. Instead, there's a psychological and even social conflicts to keep viewer engaged through the whole running time. With so many tools to keep the plot intriguingly, it's hard for an ending to be anything but ugly, regardless of the outcome. The cast brings their A game, but final impression is not daring enough to reward this flick as being something more than playing safe.

FISCHER

Une oeuvre puissante et magistrale entre huis clos étouffant et tension permanente qui laisse pantois ! www.cinefiches.com

‏ㅤ

If films like The Petrified Forest, The Desperate Hours and Lady In A Cage inspired Haneke's Funny Games I would not be surprised.

Graeme Higginson

One of the finest films of its era; a major instalment in the canon of a great director, and an equally impressive final-years effort from a great actor. Little else of its time has dissected human animality and its fundamental values-- both often mired by blind social conformity, as fully realized in its opening moments-- as profoundly, or evocatively.

Henrik Schunk

A dense cat and mouse game featuring old Bogart, still pulling it off, maybe not as menacing as he could have, but it is his charcters rogue-like ambiguity that carries the movie. A hostage drama at its core, the movie features a many characters and depicts their conflicting interests. Of course, the increasing tension between the captors and the glooming disaster is what fires up the heat of suspense.

Michele Andreoli

GREAT GREAT GREAT..!!

Daniel S.

***1/2. Earned the Edgar Allan Poe award. A classic. Bogart as the bad guy and Robert Middleton as a vicious and deficient killer. Very good but not great because it’s precisely a classic.