Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
60
(21 sources)
60
(21 sources)
-
100
The New York Times
Mr. Howard has made Ransom in the same clean, swift, logical style that sent his "Apollo 13" into orbit, resulting in a spellbinding crime tale that delivers surprises right down to the wire. Read Full Review » -
90
Salon.com
The 1996 kidnap drama Ransom traverses the parameters of public life in America, from the image public figures present to us to the image they never intended us to see. Neither one tells the whole truth. Luckily, Ransom isn't content with surfaces.. Read Full Review » -
90
Variety
Although the story is built around the automatically emotional situation of an imperiled kid, scripters Richard Price (who appears briefly as an uncomfortably handcuffed victim of Sinise in the early going) and Alexander Ignon and director Ron Howard largely steer clear of milking the easy melodrama. Read Full Review » -
80
Time
Its major sin--a certain ineluctable improbability--is pretty much offset by the moments of winsome humanity Gibson finds for his freebooter; by the rich, nicely tuned portrayals of the other actors; and by director Ron Howard's smoothly professional mastery of yet another genre that is new to him. Read Full Review » -
75
San Francisco Examiner
Ransom is every bit as taut and expertly directed, and it's another in the emergency genre, one in which Howard excels. Read Full Review » -
75
Rolling Stone
Slick thrills and the star's blue eyes are enough to make Ransom the fall's monster hit. Instead, Howard and Gibson stake out a Moclock side in all of us that won't be banished, not even by a happy ending. I'll be damned. Read Full Review » -
75
Chicago Sun-Times
The movie would have benefitted from a tight rewrite (it is too ambitious in including plot threads it doesn't have time to deal with), but Gibson's strong central performance speeds it along. Read Full Review » -
75
ReelViews
Ransom isn't a bad thriller, it's just not a great one. There's a little too much pointless running around, a subplot that leads nowhere, and a certain creeping predictability that argues for a shorter running length. Read Full Review » -
75
USA Today
This is a blueprint for mainstream moviegoing, but be forewarned that the finale is surprisingly down-and-dirty. In this case, though, the violence blisteringly redeems what has been a merely OK thriller. [8Nov1996 Pg.01.D] Read Full Review » -
75
TV Guide
Until the disappointingly conventional ending, in which dad and the head baddie go it mano a mano on the streets, this dark drama -- based on a 1956 Glenn Ford picture of the same name -- negotiates its narrative twists and turns with professional aplomb, even daring to make the hero an arrogant schmuck. Read Full Review » -
70
Washington Post
Though the film gleams with Howard's customary spit polish, there's no denying that the story is pitted with plot holes. Read Full Review » -
70
Washington Post
There are more climaxes in here than in a Swedish blue movie. This is not to say you won't be thrilled, charged up and put through the ringer at times, but your intelligence will need to be shoved under your seat like warm, flat soda. Read Full Review » -
67
Entertainment Weekly
Ransom has some clever and exciting moments, but in scene after scene it teases you with gamesmanship only to pummel you with contrivance. Read Full Review » -
50
Los Angeles Times
A persuasive thriller for most of its length, it stumbles in its attempt to become an upscale version of "Death Wish" and other vigilante dramas and ends up derailing with a soft thud. Read Full Review » -
50
Newsweek
Slick and violent and reasonably tense, Ransom holds your attention without being the least bit interesting. [11Nov1996 Pg. 74] Read Full Review » -
50
Christian Science Monitor
Gary Sinise is chilling as the villain, and the screenplay by Richard Price and Alexander Ignon shows some interest in class hostility and other social issues, although this doesn't extend far enough to allow the women of the story a chance to shine in their male-dominated surroundings. Read Full Review » -
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Since "To pay or not to pay" is banal, the plot takes the popular path of excess to a brain-boggling twist (to be specific would be to ruin what fun there is), then spirals off in a series of ever more unlikely gyrations, until a heretofore decent picture has gone completely south into fantasy-land. Read Full Review » -
40
Chicago Reader
Director Ron Howard makes too much of camera and editing tricks, as if momentarily confusing us about where a character is or which character's point of view the movie is taking will somehow deepen the narrative. Read Full Review » -
30
The New Republic
For all the film's frantic editing, it never really takes off, principally because of Gibson. He never seems concentrated, really present. He was better as Hamlet. [1996Dec9 Pg.27] Read Full Review » -
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Beneath the handsome production values, the steady motor of Ron Howard's direction and the solid acting of Mel Gibson as a flashy airline tycoon whose son is abducted in Central Park, Ransom is pure poison: the kind of hang-'em-high rouser that feeds off our basest impulses and prods us into cheering the hero on as he commits grisly, retributive acts of violence. Read Full Review » -
20
Austin Chronicle
A reprehensible movie from just about every perspective, Ransom tries to justify the behavior of its lead character as something grounded in principle, but make no mistake about it: This is the act of a man who can't bear the thought of losing, a man who will turn the tables on his enemy at the risk of a beloved's death. Read Full Review »
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