Critical response to the film was divided, with some critics panning the film and others considering it one of the year's best. The film holds an approval rating of 57% based on 122 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 5.75/10. The website's critics' consensus states: "Though well-filmed, Irréversible feels gratuitous in its extreme violence." The American film critic Roger Ebert argued that the film's structure makes it inherently moral; that by presenting vengeance before the acts that inspire it, we are forced to process the vengeance first, and therefore think more deeply about its implications.