Midas Man

Unfortunately, "Midas Man" feels like a missed opportunity to get at the heart of this tragic figure, the visionary architect of Beatlemania.

For Beatlemaniacs, though, little if any of this will be breaking news, and the film’s often dreary look hobble Midas Man as much as its decline-by-numbers narrative.

Midas Man is never less than watchable, and it does capture something about Brian Epstein that’s honest and affecting.

It’s a breezy watch with nothing insightful to impart... But it is guided by the implicit understanding that any project about the Beatles will inevitably find an audience – and that is an itch it undeniably scratches.

It’s all a bit too sanctified and safe -- lacking in rock’n’roll edge perhaps -- but Fortune-Lloyd’s core performance is deeply empathic and buoys the film up as it races through the stations of Epstein’s short, sharp shock of a life.

A wry biopic of the man who discovered the Beatles, transforming them from a scraggly quartet into the most consequential band. Here's a never-less-than-engaging look at not totally surviving the sixties, a perfect Brit counterpart to A Complete Unknown.

Midas Man does occasionally fall into familiar biopic pitfalls, but it still manages to tell a decently admirable tale even without your favorite Beatles songs.

As Epstein, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd is charming even when he breaks the fourth wall...or conveys his excitement as his career reaches dizzying heights....[An] enjoyable portrait of a man whom Paul McCartney once dubbed, “the fifth Beatle.”

With a conventional screenplay and many limitations because of its budget, Midas Man is charming nonetheless thanks to a strong lead performance and a bountiful helping of nostalgia for one of the most iconic bands in the world.

The reason to see Midas Man, Joe Stephenson’s timid biopic of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, is the grounded, impressive titular performance by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as well as a few terrific supporting turns, especially the great Emily Watson...