Metacritic reviews

The Clapper is a sharp combination of sweet romance and biting satire on the cruelties committed in the name of entertainment.

Montiel treats his story's happily unsung oddballs with sincere affection. He doesn't hold them up to ridicule, or insist that they snap out of their quirkiness and conform. But he doesn't quite know what to do with them.

The Clapper isn’t hateful, which is a huge step up for Montiel. It’s merely puerile, insipid, clumsy with only the barest hints of believeability.

The Clapper is just so boring and corny that all the audience can do is either feel bad for Helms or disingenuously applaud his unsuccessful efforts, mimicking his character’s chosen vocation.

The movie is not entirely without charm — although it’s safe to say, it’s mostly without charm. In fact, the movie has so little charm to offer that it borders on insipid.

Though it pretends to stick up for all the schmucks in the world, the film is really just laughing along with the assholes.

The Clapper unsuccessfully attempts to be sincere and embrace the absurdity of its characters’ lives.

Bafflingly witless, The Clapper is an oblivious non-starter with myriad deficiencies. Artless and clueless at every turn, writer/director Dito Montiel’s inane movie is a one-note half-gag somehow stretched into a painful 90-minute movie.

Mashing limp romance and artless satire into a ludicrously contrived plot, The Clapper lurches from one mirthlessly eccentric scene to another.

Writer-director Dito Montiel, adapting his novel, takes an ill-conceived premise and drives it into the ground with a painful, tone-deaf approach to both social satire and romantic comedy.