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A/k/a Tommy Chong
Metascore
60 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    Chong does his time (nine months) and has the last laugh, emerging as a born-again activist-survivor of the culture wars.
  2. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    70
    This is a small film, but it moved me and made me angry. Both reactions, in this context, are worthwhile.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    70
    Tells the depressing, often ridiculous and generally enraging story of how and why Mr. Chong, an extremely laid-back and genial camera presence, ended up doing time in the minimum-security Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, Calif.
  4. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    63
    Gilbert blatantly takes Chong's side, so your level of empathy will rise or fall depending on how strongly you connect with his subject's hazy, if enthusiastic, dedication to "the pursuit of righteous happiness."
  5. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    63
    How the feds inadvertently resurrected the performing career of stoner comic Tommy Chong by busting him is the ironic subtext of Josh Gilbert's one-sided documentary a/k/a Tommy Chong.
  6. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    63
    This isn't a great piece of nonfiction filmmaking, but it has its moments.
  7. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Ethan Alter
    63
    Gilbert films Chong as if he's a political prisoner like Nelson Mandela, when he's really just an older comic going to jail over a bad business decision.
  8. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: K.J. Doughton
    60
    Leave the Visine and wrapping papers at home for A/K/A Tommy Chong, a surprisingly clear-eyed, sober account of what it's liked to be embraced by a culture, while loathed by the Powers That Be.
  9. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    58
    Perhaps it was inevitable that a movie about the ultimate stoner would be undone by fuzzy execution and lack of ambition.
  10. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    50
    First-time filmmaker Josh Gilbert, whose skills behind the camera are rudimentary, might be a bit too close to his subject to do disinterested viewers justice; he clearly is a fan and is making no effort to show both sides of the story he reports.
  11. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Rob Nelson
    50
    Following Chong to the clink by way of a few well-timed stand-up gigs, this genial doc sprinkles Reagan and Nixon soundbites over its vintage stash of C&C clips for a suitably fuzzy squint at America from '69 to the buzzkill present.
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    50
    While the picture's reporting on government repression of alternative cultural ideas and lifestyles is noteworthy more than anything, it's a blatant promo for Chong's career.
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User Score
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No user score yet- Awaiting 1 more rating

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. MartinS.
    10
    Film of the year. FIlm of the year. Tommy Chong, he's my homeboy.
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