Theme: Feels like a play, effective in its simplicity, however stagey, while letting the actors do what they do well.

Most acting praise for Jodie Foster and Christoph Waltz.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/09/01/venice_11_review_carnage/
. . . A film of very little ambition, a minor entry in the director’s canon. Perhaps it was just the desire to shoot something fast and quick after his brush with justice, which is certainly understandable, but he has essentially taken a pre-existing script, cast four A-listers, locked them in a room, and shot it.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/review-23982982-carnage-venice-film-festival---first-review.do
The film celebrates an old-fashioned, underrated cinematic pleasure: the chance to see an ensemble cast of fine actors sparring with each other, and at the top of their game.

http://whatculture.com/film/venice-2011-review-roman-polanskis-carnage.php
Polanski’s direction is simple and makes good use of the hand held camera and some authentic Polanski compositions of the frame, his clear directorial signature voice he hasn’t lost over the decades. He lets the story and the actor do all the job, confirming that to make a good film all you really need is a good story and good acting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/01/carnage-review-polanski-kate-winslet
Arguably, it does turn a shade too shrill – and therefore too obviously farcical – in the final stretch, once the alcohol has been brought out and the mobile phone dumped in the vase of water. That aside, the film barely puts a foot wrong. The acting comes at full throttle while the pacing cranks up the tension in agonising, incremental degrees.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8735059/Venice-Film-Festival-2011-Carnage-review.html
It’s well-acted and giddily enjoyable, if slightly less so once the characters start to analyse their descent into barbarism.

http://incontention.com/2011/09/01/review-carnage-12/
Polanski’s straight-ahead, self-effacingly stagy treatment has a tendency to magnify this grandly amusing play’s slight pettiness and narrowness of focus.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/carnage-venice-film-festival-2347819.html
Adapted from Yasmina Reza's play, it is a chamber piece, lasting barely 80 minutes. Thanks to the coruscating dialogue and four tremendous central performances, the film transcends its stage origins.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/carnage-venice-film-review-230266
Snappy, nasty, deftly acted and perhaps the fastest paced film ever directed by a 78-year-old, this adaptation of Yasmina Reza's award-winning play God of Carnage fully delivers the laughs and savagery of the stage piece while entirely convincing as having been shot in New York, even though it was filmed in Paris for well-known reasons.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945929/
The real battle in Roman Polanski's brisk, fitfully amusing adaptation of Yasmina Reza's popular play is a more formal clash between stage minimalism and screen naturalism, as this acid-drenched four-hander never shakes off a mannered, hermetic feel that consistently betrays its theatrical origins.