Metacritic reviews

Louis C.K. should’ve applied sandpaper to the movie’s rougher edges; he should’ve adopted the jazzy, purposefully meandering, “anything goes” vibe of his previous outings. The comedic drama starts off like that, then collapses in its last third in a heap of sentimental mush.

Fourth of July is a trifle, and a facile, easy-to-watch one. But what it’s offering under the surface feels, in part, like a clandestine defense of Louis C.K.’s transgressions. In about 45 minutes, the family swings from being louts to saints. That’s supposed to be a lesson to us all. It’s not a convincing one.

Fourth of July is meant to be a comedy, but isn’t in the sense that there is nothing funny enough to laugh at. It is a domestic car crash with no edge or purpose.

This movie, a forgettable indie aside from who directed it, offers sentiment, and its existence. That’s about it. Whether one is revolted or delighted by another C.K. production, Fourth of July is a dud.

No matter where you stand on C.K.’s “reemergence” into the public eye, it’s a little disappointing that all he could muster was a platitude. Certainly a plea for people to forgive could’ve been made with a little more passion.

Fourth of July turns out to be something we would have never expected from its director/co-writer — bland.

As a director, Louis C.K. puts several feet wrong.

This film is a dud all on its own, a watered down Woody Allen facsimile that is long on F-bombs and short on wit, with an internal logic that falls apart with barely a half-cocked glance.

It’s a serious “meh,” squishy and sentimental — like a Woody Allen (cough cough) rough draft, with lots more swearing.

This is the kind of earnest but inept and obliviously indulgent indie flick that a film festival's artistic director would program in full awareness of its deficiencies, because they thought the name of someone associated with the project (in this case, the director) will put butts in seats.