Metacritic reviews

Dillon has the kind of acting intelligence that allows him to play each scene for no more than that particular scene is really about; he's not trying to summarize the message in every speech. That gives him an ease, an ability to play the teenage hero as if every day were a whole summer long.

There's not a single bad performance here, and director Marshall wisely builds his film on small moments, realized with sympathy and intelligence.

There's always something happening at the edges of The Flamingo Kid. And unexpectedly, considering the genre, there's something happening at the center, too. [21 Dec 1984, p.D1]

The over-35 audience will savor this as a nostalgia trip while younger audiences may identify with the always current dilemma of impending adulthood. [03 Jan 1985]

Even if The Flamingo Kid comes out of sit-com country, the character and the performance effortlessly rise above their origins.

Hardly original stuff, and morally the film wants to have its cake and eat it, celebrating working-class simplicity while revelling in the luxuriance of beach club life. But the performances compensate, with Dillon turning in a light and touching portrait of confused ambitions.

Dillon does a good job in his fullest, least narcissistic characterization to date.

The performances make up for the sloppy history in the film, and it's a good-hearted and diverting story. [21 Dec 1984, p.29]

Professionally made, quite entertaining, and disappointingly hollow.

The movie has an engaging surface, but it's all surface -- it's like watching an outsize TV.