Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

JohnHowardReid Matinée (1977) starts its audience off in a cleverly misleading, deliberately low-key manner, but soon sets up a noirish situation for two young boys that cleverly utilizes many believable twists and surprises to build towards both the expected high voltage climax (which itself has one really amazingly credible moment when it seems the vicious, hard-luck gangster has been caught by an alert detective) and a most unexpected, yet natural and character-consistent fade-out. The acting of both the young stars (and in fact, the whole cast, with a special pat on the back for Farnesio de Bernal) is commendably realistic. Writer/director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo never puts a foot wrong either in his vividly powerful, cleverly characterized screenplay or his consistently astute direction with its eye-opening use of real Mexican locations.