77
Metascore
31 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Broker keeps on getting funnier and knottier as secret motives are revealed, sympathies shift, mysteries deepen and dangers multiply. It is, on one level, a farcical crime caper, but it is so elegantly plotted that it never seems contrived.
- 100The PlaylistIana MurrayThe PlaylistIana MurrayAbsorbing and heartwarming, it’s easy to forget that this tender drama is about human trafficking.
- 90Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonAs often with Kore-eda’s pictures, Broker is about family, but it extends beyond that theme to talk about fundamental aspects of life — the need to belong, the hope of connecting with likeminded souls, and the desire to find a place called home.
- 85Vanity FairRichard LawsonVanity FairRichard LawsonGentle, sad, and funny in a just-shy-of-cutesy way, Broker continues Kore-eda’s tradition of handling tough subject matter with a light touch.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMuch of this might have been formulaic in less artful hands, but Kore-eda has an unfaltering lightness of touch, a way of injecting emotional veracity and spontaneity into every moment.
- 80Time OutPhil de SemlyenTime OutPhil de SemlyenThe hackneyed thieves-with-a-heart-of-gold trope is reinvigorated by the sharpness of the writing and Song’s Basset Hound charms. While Broker occasionally gets close to cloying, especially in its neat ending and jaunty score, Koreeda keeps it the right side of cutesy. It’s best enjoyed as a modern-day fairy tale – only, one where the abandoned baby sparks nothing but enchantment.
- 80VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeKore-eda is surprisingly generous toward his characters, nearly all of whom are breaking the law, but whose fundamental decency is brought out when dealing with others in need.
- 40The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawThe movie is fundamentally silly, with tiringly shallow characterisation and broad streaks of crime-drama intrigue, which only underline the fact that not a single word of it is really believable.
- 40The TelegraphTim RobeyThe TelegraphTim RobeyAll his usual strengths fail him in a different culture here, perhaps because the veneer of venal cynicism that ought to be the film’s top layer is so easy to scratch through. Digging for the pathos hardly takes us long, especially with one of the director’s most cloying scores handing over a shovel.