Mystery Train (film) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Like Jarmusch's previous films, Mystery Train enjoyed a warm reception from critics. This was particularly evident at Cannes, where the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or and Jarmusch was commended for the festival's Best Artistic Achievement. It was nominated in six categories at the 1989 Independent Spirit Awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Jim Jarmusch), Best Director (Jim Jarmusch), Best Cinematography (Robby Müller), Best Actress (Youki Kudoh), and Best Supporting Actor (Steve Buscemi and Screamin' Jay Hawkins).

Entertainment Weekly reviewer Ira Robbins gave the film a B+ rating, complimenting it as "conceptually ambitious" and concluding that its "offbeat characters, fine cinematography, and novel structure make for entertaining viewing". Robert Fulford of The National Post hailed it as "eccentric and deliriously funny", while Rolling Stone's Phil Whitman remarked that the director's "bracing, original comedy may be mostly smoke and air, but it's not insubstantial". In The New York Times, Vincent Canby called it "thoroughly fascinating, a delight" and the director's best effort to date, drawing note to its retention of the "same kind of dour, discordant charm" exhibited by Stranger Than Paradise. He praised Jarmusch's development as a screenwriter – citing the restrained dialogue, humor and subtlety of the narrative and the careful construction of the plot – and the performances he elicited from the ensemble cast. John Hartl, in The Seattle Times, also drew a comparison with Stranger Than Paradise, judging Mystery Train to be the more accessible work while retaining the dry wit of its predecessor.

Hal Hinson of The Washington Post was unimpressed with the film, calling it Jarmusch's "least engaging, and the first in which his bohemian posturing actually becomes an irritant". Of the film's characters, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote that some were "beautifully imagined and realized, while others seem drawn from a more familiar stockpile, designed for reuse rather than discovery". David Denby, concluding a mixed review of the film for New York Magazine, mused that "one feels Jarmusch has pushed hipsterism and cool about as far as they can go, and that isn't nearly far enough." This reproach was echoed by other reviewers who found that the film's style did not stray far from that of the director's earlier work – a critical backlash that would be amplified two years later following the release of Night On Earth (1991).

Postmodern cultural critic bell hooks cited the interaction in the Memphis train station between Thomas and the Japanese couple as one of the few examples of nuanced, deconstructive and subversive treatment of blackness in American film. The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert proclaimed that "he best thing about Mystery Train is that it takes you to an America you feel you ought to be able to find for yourself, if you only knew where to look." In an April 2000 retrospective of Jarmusch's work for Sight & Sound, Shawn Levy concluded that the film was "as much a valentine to the allure of the American way of pop culture as it is a cheeky bit of structural legerdemain without terribly much resonating significance".