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The Situation
Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 20
  3. Negative: 2 out of 20
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  1. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Marta Barber
    75
    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.
  2. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    75
    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.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    75
    Compelling and deeply disturbing.
  4. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    75
    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.
  5. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    70
    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.
  6. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    63
    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.
  7. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    58
    An overstuffed, unengaging drama that makes time for a love triangle.
  8. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    50
    Dividing its loyalties between documentary and fictional narrative, it lacks the advantages of belonging to either side.
  9. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Sandy MacDonald
    50
    Overall the concept is strong and expertly fleshed out; it's just a pity that Hollywood tropes are allowed to invade.
  10. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    50
    An uneven but impressively ambitious picture.
  11. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    50
    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."
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Ronnie Scheib
    50
    Undeniably topical but the lack of emotional investment in its characters renders it more intelligent than engaging.
  13. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Michael Rechtshaffen
    40
    Part war drama, part political thriller, part romance -- and wholly uninvolving.
  14. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    40
    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.
  15. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    40
    The romance makes an awkward, contrived fit with the nominally serious political stuff, and even those momentous events come off as generic and unconvincing.
  16. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    40
    The situation in The Situation is grimly photogenic, yet persistently opaque.
    All this critic's reviews
  17. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    40
    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.
  18. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    40
    This awkward and half-digested movie gives off a melancholy reek.
  19. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    33
    It's a rare moment when the STORY makes the point, not the speeches.
  20. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    20
    Exploitation cinema of the most narcoleptic kind.
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