What with these pictorial pollutants, he loses sight of plot." Pauline Kael observed in The New Yorker that Scott "has put so much morbid, finicky care into this silly little story that he's worried the fun out of it."
Pauline Kael, in The New Yorker, criticizes Scott's approach to filmmaking, suggesting his meticulous attention to detail has resulted in a lack of focus on the plot and that he has "worried the fun out" of the film by overemphasizing visual elements.