59
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The GuardianCatherine ShoardThe GuardianCatherine ShoardThe film functions as clammy thriller as well as poetic agitprop.
- 80Time Out LondonDave CalhounTime Out LondonDave CalhounIf Heli lacks enough focus and thematic clarity to make it properly special, it's still winningly provocative and always compelling.
- 75Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMiami HeraldRene RodriguezBy film’s end, everyone has been transformed for the worst. Heli is a troubling and upsetting picture, a portrait of a broken country that seems to be beyond repair and a depiction of how violence and corruption, when left unchecked, taints saints and sinners alike, sparing no one.
- 67The PlaylistKevin JagernauthThe PlaylistKevin JagernauthHeli is a despairing, bleak watch. It's a slow, but unrelenting look at one young man's punishing loss of innocence amongst a society that has already decayed beyond understanding.
- 63Slant MagazineTomas HachardSlant MagazineTomas HachardThe emotional and political point through all this isn't to be taken lightly, but because the entirety of the film has such a nihilistic temperament, its effect is muted.
- 60The TelegraphRobbie CollinThe TelegraphRobbie CollinThroughout the film [Escalante's] camera tends to be lurking in the middle distance; coolly observing everything that passes through its inquisitive frame, leaving the messy business of reaction to us.
- 60CineVueBen NicholsonCineVueBen NicholsonShock and awe are both present - as is Escalante's intense style - but Heli lacks the ideas or formal dexterity to constitute a state of the nation address in any but the most cursory of ways.
- 50VarietyScott FoundasVarietyScott FoundasAn accomplished but singularly unpleasant immersion in Mexico's vicious cycle of drug-fueled violence.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonThe Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonHeli is undoubtedly made with serious intent, but it is also relentlessly depressing and curiously uninvolving.
- 40EmpireEmpireGrim and gritty. Warning: contains punishing scenes of testicle burning.