Red Roses and Petrol

29

World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation ( minutes)
and Tamar Simon Hoffs
Malcolm McDowell , Heather Juergensen , Greg Ellis , Greg Ellis , Susan Lynch , Olivia Tracey , Catherine Farrell , and Max Beesley

Rating: R for language including some sexual references

Summary: Based on a successful Irish play by acclaimed writer Joseph O’Conner, and directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, the darkly comedic drama offers a tour-de-force showcase for McDowell as Enda Doyle, a university librarian, poet, and rascal who is the flawed patriarch of a dysfunctional family struggling to come to terms with his death and with one another. Unfolding amidst a haze of cigarette smoke and uneaten food, as his family gathers in Dublin for his wake, Red Roses and Petrol explores the emotional dynamics of familial relationships with sharp humor and surprising turns. (World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation)

Eric Campos
Film Threat:
(40) Bottom line, what I took away from this movie was – that drunk guy sure was funny.

Scott Foundas
Variety:
(40) It all rings particularly hollow in light of several recent pics ("Last Orders" and "The Barbarian Invasions" chief among them) that have explored similar terrain with much greater emotion and intelligence.

Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News:
(40) Solid performances and a literary feel help turn a standard family-rift drama into a dry but saucy narrative.

Robert Abele
Los Angeles Times:
(40) This is the kind of movie in which characters revere poetry, yet hardly anything about the writing (it's based on a stage play by Joseph O'Connor) or directing (by Tamar Simon Hoffs) qualifies as poetic.

Jeannette Catsoulis
The New York Times:
(30) All in all, this is a movie best enjoyed with a snoot full and a morbid disposition.

Aaron Hillis
Village Voice:
(30) Tamar Simon Hoffs's bland-as-boiled-cabbage adaptation of Joseph O'Connor's play finally hobbles into theaters.

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