The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "There is such an extraordinary visual elegance to Arturo Ripstein's
Foxtrot that one is all too ready to believe, at the outset, that he is in the presence of a masterpiece. Everything works. ... As a visual and aural experience,
Foxtrot is a masterwork. No picture could possibly look better, or feel better. ... Somewhere along the line – probably when their private world is invaded by the yachting party –
Foxtrot slips its moorings. While it still looks marvelous, its intriguing personal story edges over into parable, and everything that happens acquires an added significance that it can't quite sustain. ... the film grows increasingly, disconcertingly detached from reality, until all you're really left with is a great look and the suave sound of
Pete Rugolo's sophisticated score."
Variety wrote: "
Foxtrot is a chic, stylish, but ultimately hollow Peter O'Toole starrer, made in Mexico ... Though the fancy shooting style of director Arturo Ripstein and lenser
Alex Phillips Jr holds attention, pic often lapses from mild irony into cornball melodrama in the purple style of 1930s pix starring
Kay Francis and
Warren William. ... Ripstein makes the mistake of inviting comparison with similar themes in
Jean Renoir's 1939 masterpiece
The Rules Of The Game, but he lacks Renoir's generosity toward people, and the film remains content with scoring petty points against both aristocrats and servants. Von Sydow, particularly, has his talents wasted by this approach, making him a venal and uninteresting character." == References ==