The People
March 7, 2004
By Richard Bacon

If you're a big fan of very pretentious movies done really badly, then you'll want to make space in your diary for this one. Not even the presence of Joseph Fiennes, Elizabeth Shue and Dennis Hopper can stop Leo from being one of the messiest movies I've seen in a long time. Like a cross between Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction and a rambling story told by an elderly relative, Leo is dull and slow and will leave you cold. To say the story is told badly might imply there's a story worth telling. There isn't. It's more like being stuck with the pub bore than being at the movies. So if you find yourself sitting down with Leo, my advice is to pretend you have to go to the toilet, and then escape out of the window.

The Guardian (London)
March 12, 2004
By Peter Bradshaw

This made a reasonable impression for its UK premiere at the London film festival two years ago, but on a second viewing it now seems unbearably slight, with a mannered performance from Joseph Fiennes who does his unvarying spiritual smirk throughout. Fiennes plays Stephen, a convict released on parole who appears to have kept up a correspondence with a sensitive and bookish boy called Leo, hated by his mother and named by her after Leopold Bloom. But the substance of Joyce's novel has no real relevance, other than to provide the spurious, literary whiff of sensitivity. Elisabeth Shue, Dennis Hopper and Sam Shepard all play their supporting roles up to the hilt. But the movie is much, much less than the sum of its parts.

The Independent (London)
March 12, 2004
By Anthony Quinn

There's a persuasive spookiness in the early scenes of this feature debut by the commercials director Mehdi Norowzian, which is heightened by the trance-like photography of Zubin Mistry. Two stories run in parallel: a frustrated mother (Elisabeth Shue) seeks revenge for what she perceives as her husband's infidelity, while a taciturn jailbird (Joseph Fiennes) starts work at a dead-end diner and writes his life story. Sam Shepard, Dennis Hopper and Deborah Unger provide solid support. It's when the double narratives are woven together that the movie's texture thins out and the literary motifs (doppelgangers, a boy named Leopold Bloom, the final pullback shot) look like stunts. But the first hour is absorbing, and marks Norowzian as one to watch.