61
Metascore
21 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinMr. 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.
- 90SalonCharles TaylorSalonCharles TaylorThe 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..
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe 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.
- 75ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliRansom 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.
- 75Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversSlick 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.
- 75San Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserSan Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserRansom is every bit as taut and expertly directed, and it's another in the emergency genre, one in which Howard excels.
- 70Washington PostDesson ThomsonWashington PostDesson ThomsonThere 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.
- 50The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenSince "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.
- 25San Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannSan Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannBeneath 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.
- 20Austin ChronicleSteve DavisAustin ChronicleSteve DavisA 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.