Metacritic reviews

Featuring sidesplitting performances from its stacked cast and some gnarly, shocking twists, Dito Montiel's Riff Raff is as fun as it is jaw-dropping, and will keep you entranced (and at times mildly disturbed), for its entire wacky runtime.

If Quentin Tarantino ever made a family film, it might look like “Riff Raff.”

Where Tarantino is bold, the main shortcoming here is that Montiel plays it safe.

Had all those assets been funneled into a movie with some tonal consistency and a script that built credible relationships, the result might have been a nasty bit of fun. Instead, it wobbles awkwardly between creeping mob menace and scrappy sitcom, inching toward a violent climax that still doesn’t acquire cohesion.

Its all-star cast performs admirably, in a film that takes its time to get going, reveals and confronts little once it does, and uses none of its story swerves to build on its dramatic themes, or its one-note humor.

There doesn’t seem to be a single original bone in this film’s body that gives you a parade of half-baked comedic scenes braided with a trite thriller and family mystery.

Two decades and half a dozen films later, everything that made his debut film feel fresh has now curdled like bad milk with his latest pitch black comedy Riff Raff.

I don’t go out of my way to drag films, as there is so much time and effort put into every project, and a film of this caliber was likely made with the best of intentions. But intending to craft a pitch-black dark crime comedy is different from actually executing one well. And Riff Raff just doesn't land.

Harris and Murray are such reliably engaging screen presences that they provide a few glimmers of entertainment, provided you’re able to set aside the movie’s practically all-encompassing repulsiveness.

How do you cram a cast of A-listers, led by Bill Murray, Jennifer Coolidge and Pete Davidson, into a crime caper so laugh deprived that calling it a comedy qualifies as false advertising? Here’s your answer. And it’s a crying shame.