Explores a common ground for noir thrillers before stumbling and imploding in a climax that feels like it might have been hijacked from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

More a dark fairy tale about vengeance than the action-packed crime thriller it purports to be, the film is at times exhilarating, bold, and beautiful -- when it's not busy being ludicrous, fragmented, and just plain stupid.

This blend of Scandinavian gloom and Hollywood hokum never jells.
Critic Score: 1/4

Perhaps if Farrell and Rapace and Oplev had all stayed in Europe - and tried to do a similar script, with half-as-much firepower, and twice as much brainpower - they might have had something worth watching. Instead it's just something worth ducking.
Critic Score: 2/4

A moody twist of hyper-violent vengeance and heartache where death is hand-delivered, mercy is hard to come by and love is never easy.
Critic Score: 3/5

The cautionary adage about weaving tangled webs in the process of deception certainly applies to Dead Man Down, an overwrought thriller brought to ground by its own contrivances.
Critic Score: 2/4

The movie might have been better if its Swedish director, Niels Arden Oplev, had played with the genre cliches stuffed in this turkey instead of going for straight-up action.
Critic Score: 2/5

The screenplay by J. H. Wyman is squirm-inducing in its preposterous dialogue and haphazard plotting.

Before it devolves into typical American-style action, there's an intriguing, European-style complexity to Dead Man Down.
Critic Score: 3/5