Popular reviews

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  Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★

  This movie is real, gritty, and fantastic. I was expecting something more along the lines of The Third Man, Carol Reed’s other highly praised work, but this film strikes a very different tone. It isn’t a traditional noir, it bares more resemblance to a pre code crime drama, yet having been made in the UK it didn’t have quite the same restrictions.

  James Mason is fantastic, it’s not hard to see how he became a star. And Carol Reed’s direction is a cut above. Much like The Third Man, he is so great with lighting, especially at night. They both bear fantastic shots of men in trench-coats running down alleys backlit. Never gets old.

  While I enjoyed this one, I…

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  Review by Richard Chandler ★★★★½ 8

  "He's a prize creature—wounded or sound."

  Set over the course of a fateful night in unnamed postwar Belfast, Carol Reed's magnificent film adaptation of F. L. Green's 1945 novel Odd Man Out charts the lonely, protracted demise of a moribund IRA insurgent (like the setting, the affiliation is obvious though not specified) as he begs for quarter—instead becoming quarry to a colorful range of self-serving kites until his lovesick safe house minder collateralizes herself to end his suffering.

  Reed commissioned Green to adapt his own novel alongside seasoned screenwriter/playwright R. C. Sherriff, though the film version significantly reworks the material—chiefly by removing its tendentious anti-IRA sentiment and rendering the protagonist in a more sympathetic light (a task aided in no…

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 24

  Carol Reed doesn’t only refuse to paint morality in terms of black and white in “Odd Man Out.” 
  He also sketches his portrait of human necessity and despair with so many shades of grey; the buildup of the director’s graphite layers seems to glisten with an eternal and ineffable desire. 

  “Odd Man” precedes “The Third Man” in Reed’s noir filmography. And, it’s generally the later work that is better known, and more widely considered to be the masterpiece. But where “Third Man” is a peak of visual and structural cohesion, it is “Odd Man” that, even fumbling, grasps all the more powerfully at the soul. 

  The work depicts a seemingly small scuffle involving a subgroup of Irish Nationalists in Belfast.…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★

  75/100

  Current Letterboxd one-sheet proclaims this "the most exciting motion picture ever made!", which is not just hyperbole but essentially the antithesis of how the film actually works. Mason was already Britain's top star at the time, yet Odd Man Out incapacitates him almost immediately, leaving him mostly or entirely unconscious for the duration; he's the passive fulcrum around which a bevy of reactive dramas pivot, collectively providing a portrait of an entire community. It's an unusual, invigorating structure, achieving peak ambivalence during the magnificent scene (written up for Scenic Routes) in which Johnny's taken in by two chatty middle-aged women who think he's been hit by a lorry and only gradually realize who they've rescued. That the movie never…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½

  "In my profession there is neither good nor bad. There is innocence and guilt. That's all."

  Polanski's favorite film, and i can see why. on par with THE THIRD MAN, for me. muscular direction, an intriguingly lateral narrative... only stalls out a bit when it switches its focus from consequence to cause. also, young james mason looks like angelina jolie (squint, if you must). there's a criterion laserdisc, but i'm gonna need a criterion blu-ray.

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  Review by Lowe McKee 14

  Nobody shoots desperate shadows running down alleyways and corridors like Carol Reed and DP Robert Krasker. Two years before they would again collaborate on The Third Man, this film and that film would make a fantastic one-two punch of a double feature.

  A true ensemble piece. Our protagonist Johnny spends the majority of the film as nothing more than a walking shadow. On the run, a price on his head, barely clinging to life. The magic of this film is found in the ways Johnny’s predicament unveils the myriad facets of human nature in all those that cross his path. A series of vignettes. What does this desperate man provoke in the people around him? Kindness, fear, avoidance, empathy, moral superiority, the impulse to help, the impulse to exploit...

  I was surprised in the directions the story took. Love a film that pulls no punches with its ending. Solid addition to Noirvember.

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  Review by Cormac 👑 ★★★★ 5

  This story is told against a background of political unrest in a city of Northern Ireland.

  It is not concerned with the struggle between the law and an illegal organisation, but only with the conflict in the hearts of the people when they become unexpectedly involved.

  So states the opening prologue, leaving no room for ambiguity and straight out the gate, setting the tone for what’s to come. It doesn’t take a genius to ascertain that said unnamed city is, of course, Belfast; Post-wartime, midst-campaign of violence and terrorism by one certain anti-Unionist institution. Pre-emptive to a whole lot more of the same. 5 minutes in and you hear a myriad of half-passable Ulster accents. With a key set-piece unmistakingly…

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★

  James Mason deservedly enjoyed a long and distinguished career which stretched from humble beginnings in the Yorkshire dales to being nominated for his third Oscar in 1982 for starring opposite Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. Odd Man Out, directed by Carol Reed, finds him delivering one of his most outstanding performances in a film written by R. C. Sheriff, based on a novel by F. L. Green.

  It acquires ecclesiastical characteristics as it follows Mason as IRA leader Johnny McQueen becoming increasingly delirious while attempting to evade police following a robbery to raise funds for the cause goes wrong. It's much less about the heist and the ensuing pursuit from the authorities than it is about one man…

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  Review by eels reels ★★★½ 1

  me to the police when they catch me tending to james mason’s wounds in my flat: I just don’t think harboring a fugitive should be a crime if the fugitive is sexy...
  the police: you are so right miss, what were we even thinking, we’ll leave you to it.

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  Review by Dizzle_Sizzle ★★★★½ 12

  Within a microcosm of well-known national conflict lies the leader of the organization operating on behalf of its particular agenda, however he's a far cry from an innately evil man. An accidental death during a robbery gone awry has him questioning - time and again - whether the man he shot was killed, the answer to which is as obvious as individuals' willingness to be seen or associated with him certainly isn't. As Mason's Johnny is subsequently bounced around from one hidey-hole to the next in search of impossible refuge, the film abides by a carefully woven tapestry of human nature warped by forced ambivalence about harboring this wanted man in any capacity. Opportunists could so much as turn on…

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★

  The Catholic gunman as Christ.

  James Mason's wounded fugitive's final traipse across the stormy nighttime streets of Belfast becomes, with each passing vignette, an allegory of the stations of the cross that was bound to resonate with Irish audiences. Whilst some may find such a comparison between the son of God and what is essentially a murdering terrorist offensive, it's important to remember that Mason's character Johnny McQueen is a man who lives the way he is not by choice, but because it is the only way he knows how to, all for a belief that burns strongly within him.

  As much as I love The Third Man, and believe me I really really love The Third Man, it is…

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  Review by Graham

  Hidden away deep underneath the foggy haze of a punishing Belfast snowfall, Odd Man Out retells the narrative from the 1945 book of the same name with a hint of noir and plenty of soul. James Mason delivers a stunning performance, and despite being disabled early in the film, he soldiers on through the two-hour runtime to a dangerous and sombre conclusion.

  In a land being ripped apart by an ongoing and bloody feud between a divided Irish people and the British Armed Forces, the film does not try to deliver a political message from any particular angle. Instead, it focuses on the influence this pre "the troubles" time had on the residents. A wartime period when trust was hard…