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It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I guess the film tries to show that the bourgeois family is full of lies. More so, bourgeois woman. I am not sure if the emphasis on bourgeois-ness is intentional though. The story told is an age-old story, and the setting --i.e. the upper class environment-- is still a puzzle for me. As I said, I am not sure whether this setting was intentional or not. The ending makes you think that it is not.Unlike the change of tone of the music used towards the end, suspense does not continue in a strongly manner. Plot runs as it is expected. I was hoping to get a little bit more about the witty intellectual but it turns out it is just a medium of distraction for the audience. One might think that it is what accelerates the tension, but I hardly think so. I also think that husband's passive role and Juan's conscientious pain which gives him hard times do not coalesce in a way that it makes more sense.At the the end, movie ends up with a women seeking to preserve her current social status no matter the cost is. As a moral relief, director kills her so that we can finish the movie in peace. Despite the well-organized structure of the movie, I think that moral guilt of the man vs. immorality of the women is not a nice story. Nevertheless, I should say that the husband who does not want to know much but willing to forget everything fits to the general picture about him depicted earlier.

Bardem's 'Death of a Cyclist' sees illicit lovers choose not to help the dead cyclist in question nor admit to their guilt. Forced to share this murderous secret their love affair turns torrid. Rafa the self penned 'Critic' of Spain archly ignites the touchpaper that sees the couple forcing themselves into making a decision about whether or not to live with the secret. They then both make their fateful decisions...Although much has been made of the ending, and that the ending is not something he agreed to, however it seems to offer hope for a society that at the time had been torn apart and in part corrupted by a violence and self aggrandisement. Juan's actions in the third act also hint at a goodness at the heart of the wormy apple.One for those who liked Malle's 'Lift to the Scaffold' and 'Double Indemnity'.

This is an enjoyable film – even though it was made some years ago. It is dated and has some flaws – but more on this later. The story is concise – a couple having an affair hit a bicyclist who dies. They are troubled and ambivalent about it.In their society circle there is an individual (Rafa) who knows or suspects their affair. He tries to blackmail them and this is very well handled in the movie. The troubled couple do not know the extent of his knowledge.The man having the affair is a professor and due to the stress he is under humiliates a female student in the classroom. This became less credible as she eventually starts to like him and almost becomes his confidante. There is a small riot at the university due to this public humiliation of the student – this riot starts and finishes rather abruptly – it all seems a rather contrived and an unnecessary subplot.The music is very obtrusive at times but this goes with the film era.Also what I found particularly annoying was I could not tell the woman's husband and her lover apart. They both looked alike –with small mustache's. So in scenes with the woman it took time to distinguish who she was with - lover or husband; it was even more confusing when they were all together! The woman is strikingly beautiful – looking almost like Ingrid Bergman. The acting through-out was good – but sometimes given to philosophical musings. I could not help thinking that if a re-make was made today it would be full of histrionics and gory accidents.The ending is somewhat over the top – but it is conclusive.

Up until the last couple minutes of this film I was very impressed by DEATH OF A CYCLIST. It was an excellent and well-constructed tale about two individuals and the different ways that they respond to their perpetrating a hit and run that killed a bicycler. I especially appreciated how the lady and man responded so differently--with one eventually rising to the occasion and the other sinking deeper and deeper into evil. So as a character study, it was wonderful as well as very dark.However, in the last couple minutes a "good ALWAYS triumphs over evil" ending is tacked on the film that just doesn't work at all and undoes almost all the greatness of the film. The director apparently did NOT want to give it this cheap and horrible ending, but he was forced by the fascist Spanish government to include this ending against his wishes. And, true to the director's vision, the ending they used did destroy the impact of the film. What exactly the bad ending is you can see for yourself. It's really a shame because just before this final scene is one of the BEST scenes when one of the two criminals turns on the other one--a brilliant piece of film making.PS--It's interesting that after only a few weeks, this review has gotten three negative comments. If they score it this way because I didn't like the ending and found it took away from the film, this is ALSO the way the director felt about it as well. It was wonderful, but that ending just was a let-down and the director was understandably angry that he was forced to make this concession to the government censors. On the other hand, if the negatives are because I am dead wrong, then I willingly accept them.