GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Situation, The
Shadow Distribution Inc.

Situation, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 45 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
4.0 out of 10
based on 20 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 2 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Connie Nielsen, Damian Lewis, Mido Hamada, John Slattery, Thomas McCarthy, Peter Eyre, Omar Berdouni, and Nasser Memarzia

Combining elements of thriller, romance, and war movie, The Situation, set exclusively in Iraq, dramatizes one of the countless human stories that lie behind the headlines of the current war. (Shadow Distribution)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Wendell Steavenson  
DIRECTED BY: Philip Haas  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: February 2, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Shot in Morocco with hand-held cameras, the movie has the urgency of a heart attack. Clearly tilted against the war, and heavy on explanatory dialogue, it paints a bleak picture of a desperate country that is being exploited by extremists at the expense of the despairing citizens. The situation is dire.
Read Full Review
75
TV Guide Ken Fox
While not easy to watch, and at times even harder to follow, Haas' film is an important attempt to accurately capture the confusing reality of contemporary Iraq.
Read Full Review
75
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Compelling and deeply disturbing.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Marta Barber
The Situation is written by Wendell Steavenson, a reporter who served in Iraq, as a work of fiction. Its best quality is that the situation in Iraq appears to be sadly realistic.
Read Full Review
70
Village Voice J. Hoberman
The Situation, Philip Haas's deftly paced, well-written, and brilliantly infuriating Iraq War thriller is not only the strongest of recent geopolitical hotspot flicks but one that has been designed for maximal agitation.
Read Full Review
63
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The Situation deserves credit for not trying to reduce the events in Iraq to facile equations. There is corruption and cynicism on all sides: the U.S. diplomats and military, the Sunni leaders, the thugs in cop uniforms, the local powerbrokers.
Read Full Review
58
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
An overstuffed, unengaging drama that makes time for a love triangle.
Read Full Review
50
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
An uneven but impressively ambitious picture.
Read Full Review
50
Boston Globe Sandy MacDonald
Overall the concept is strong and expertly fleshed out; it's just a pity that Hollywood tropes are allowed to invade.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Ronnie Scheib
Undeniably topical but the lack of emotional investment in its characters renders it more intelligent than engaging.
Read Full Review
50
New York Post Kyle Smith
Dividing its loyalties between documentary and fictional narrative, it lacks the advantages of belonging to either side.
Read Full Review
50
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
As ambitious in scope as it is interpretively timid, The Situation delivers the requisite incendiary climax, but collapses in on itself with daft speeches about the elusiveness of truth in something called "the fourth dimension of time."
Read Full Review
40
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Though Philip Haas's digitally shot film has the firsthand immediacy of such nonfictional docs as "Iraq in Fragments" and "Gunner Palace," its dramatic template feels disappointingly secondhand.
Read Full Review
40
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The romance makes an awkward, contrived fit with the nominally serious political stuff, and even those momentous events come off as generic and unconvincing.
Read Full Review
40
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The situation in The Situation is grimly photogenic, yet persistently opaque.
40
New York Magazine David Edelstein
The Situation is, to put it kindly, a spotty piece of work. The script is by Wendell Steavenson, a reporter who seems to know everything about Iraq and next to nothing about screenwriting. The dialogue is flat, and the actors almost never rise above it.
Read Full Review
40
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
This awkward and half-digested movie gives off a melancholy reek.
Read Full Review
40
The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
Part war drama, part political thriller, part romance -- and wholly uninvolving.
Read Full Review
33
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
It's a rare moment when the STORY makes the point, not the speeches.
Read Full Review
20
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Exploitation cinema of the most narcoleptic kind.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 4.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use