| 75 |
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Works uncommonly well because of the effective manner in which it blends together its various elements: the WW2 prison camp setting, the courtroom aspects, and the issues of honor, racism, and redemption.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Reminds us that the human dynamic can do a lot that explosions can't, even when the film flirts with formula.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
A solid piece of storytelling that doesn't pander, skips the usual POW stereotypes and allows the film to work reasonably well as an epic of war, a survival story, a prison thriller, a murder mystery and a courtroom drama.
|
| 75 |
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The lack of attacks lets us concentrate on emotions rather than explosions.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
The plot is canny, but it would be little more than an ingenious springloaded device were it not for the performances by Howard and Iures.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie worked for me right up to the final scene, and then it caved in.
|
| 70 |
Newsweek
David Ansen
Gets too earnest for its own good. But Billy Ray and Terry George’s screenplay, taken from a John Katzenbach novel, is expertly plotted.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
It may seem harmless, to some, that our movies have never entirely abandoned the land of Poitier-ville, but as Hart's War demonstrates, it's an insult that they haven't.
|
| 63 |
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
Quickly morphs into a messy double message movie with motifs and clichés lifted from military courtroom films like "A Soldier's Story" and "A Few Good Men."
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Just because a movie was inspired by real life and has good intentions doesn't mean it can't wind up as phony as a three-dollar bill.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Could have been a contender, but it lacks the courage of its own ambivalence.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
A mildly psychological suspense thriller with military trappings.
|
| 60 |
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
A decent thriller trying to overcome a rather preposterous premise.
|
| 60 |
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Absorbing in a low-key way but more dramatic where its secondary characters are concerned than its leads, and capped by climactic incidents that are less than entirely convincing.
|
| 60 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
In its amalgam of classic Hollywood war movies and courtroom dramas, Hart's War takes the audience to a place that never existed in order to teach it a lesson it already knows.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Follows all these rules, which is why you'll get the enjoyable basic minimum. But not a whit more.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Carla Meyer
Takes some admirable risks.
|
| 50 |
New Times (L.A.)
Robert Wilonsky
Ultimately, Hart's War can't decide what it is: treatise on racism, escape (and escapist) thriller or murder mystery. So it sits there -- and we sit there with it, waiting and waiting. And waiting.
|
| 50 |
Film Threat
Chris Barsanti
Confused and dramatically overwrought.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Despite its admirable sobriety for most of its running time, the film's climax is a parade of ludicrous clichés.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Having seen the TV series "Hogan's Heroes," we already know that a German prisoner of war camp can be cartooned; Hart's War goes further as a cartoon that takes itself seriously.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
The movie's exploration of prejudice within the military is certainly on target, but it's presented with all the finesse of a classroom civics lesson.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Hart's War has its priorities clear, but delivers them with insulting simplicity.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
It more or less self-destructs in a ridiculous last few minutes when it becomes a noble sacrifice-o-rama.
|
| 40 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Director Gregory Hoblit ("Primal Fear") is merely arranging cliches in new patterns until the surprise ending blows enough pro-military fervor up the audience's ass to make Colin Powell call a halt.
|
| 40 |
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
A movie like Hart's War, for all its realistic trappings, is essentially escapism. And yet it inadvertently pushes the 9/11 button. The real world is going to intrude a lot this year at the movies. Better get used to it.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
Justine Elias
Seriously off balance.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Less fascinating and finally unsatisfying is the awfully familiar racism angle, a subplot that, though unusual in a POW movie, turns regrettably earnest and preachy almost immediately.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Inoffensive and sporadically engrossing.
|
| 30 |
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
If glum were good and bleak were best, Hart's War would be a standout.
|
| 30 |
Salon.com
Charles Taylor
Put Bruce Willis and this bewildering World War II movie in front of the firing line.
|
| 30 |
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
Wants to be everything and adds up to nothing. "War" is a film that tries to excel on several levels and falls flat on all of them.
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