Metacritic reviews

There is nothing extraordinary about the filmmaking, but Mashayekh's old-fashioned commitment to his and co-writer Belle Avery's story creates an overall satisfying experience.

A vanity film refreshingly lacking in vanity.

While sumptuously beautiful, the film is often stilted and undermined by some painfully amateurish performances that no good intentions can smooth over.

Though the story hardly lacks for event as it traces Khayyam's ascension from the peasantry to the royal court, the period costumes and sets look to be on loan from Medieval Times, as do most of the actors, and the boxy, harshly lit compositions make everything feel even more cardboard.

Rough around the edges, it's still a formidable movie.

The wraparound storyline is unnecessary and continually interrupts the vastly more interesting story of Khayyam's history.

Lofty ambitions and unaffected sincerity are not quite enough to sustain The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam, a reverentially pokey drama that plays less like a conventional movie than a lengthy series of hagiographic historical tableaux.

The script's a plodder, and the acting's unbearably stilted. The movie's intentions are like the starry constellations that inspire the eponymous hero: out of reach.

That "The Keeper" was made by a novice is evident in the visible seams between the present-day narrative and the flashbacks; the whole thing plays like a loopy amalgam of stilted costume picture and after-school special.

The writing, acting and direction are so amateurish that the only thing you'll care about is escaping the theater.