| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
It's a superb film -- funny, insightful and very wise about the realities of political life.
|
| 100 |
USA Today
Jack Garner
Perhaps Nichols and May's greatest accomplishment is capturing perfectly on film the mysterious, complex, compromised relationship the public has with today's political leaders.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Such a smart and savvy piece of work it encourages us to feel we're eavesdropping on history.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Guilty, deftly orchestrated fun.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
It's as wise and funny and revealing as anything ever created by Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
|
| 90 |
Newsweek
I expected to laugh; I didn't expect to be moved.
|
| 88 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Sophisticated and unsentimental political film.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
Whatever else it may or may not be, Primary Colors is first and last a mainstream Hollywood entertainment. And that means that viewers looking for engagement with political issues are bound to be disappointed.
|
| 80 |
Time
Nichols and his once and current partner, screenwriter Elaine May, can make a funny, knowing, ultimately judicious film from the deliciously satyric satire.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Its palette isn't primary at all: It's full of secondary shadings.
|
| 80 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
One the truest-feeling political portraits in years, as well as a fine piece of drama.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
A hilariously entertaining movie.
|
| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
One of those thrilling confluences in pop culture that rewards audiences for thinking the worst about politicians and the best about movie stars.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Striking an excellent balance between wry cultural critique and crisp entertainment value, the picture is as smart and funny as any comedy-drama in recent memory.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
It's a winner with flaws.
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
It's a movie struggling with its own identity crisis, and with the obvious constraints created by its subject matter.
|
| 70 |
The New Republic
The result is glib, often funny, sometimes bumpy, and ultimately depressing.
|
| 70 |
New York Magazine
David Denby
This entertaining but rather peculiar movie asks extraordinary questions, and I wish it were better equipped to give the answers.
|
| 70 |
TV Guide
An intelligent and very funny satire about the bloody game of American politics.
|
| 70 |
Variety
A modern immorality tale with a keen, observant edge.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
As with Bill Clinton himself, Primary Colors forces one to take the disappointing with the good, the letdown with the promise, the compromises with the hope.
|
| 70 |
Film Threat
At once entertaining and depressing -- it exposes politics raw.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Primary Colors is by turns hugely entertaining and resoundingly square, beginning as a raucous black comedy about political mechanics and ending as a sober-sided morality tale.
|
| 63 |
ReelViews
Joe Klein's novel -- is a cynical satire of life on the campaign trail. It's harsh, blistering, and possesses an edge that the film, a warmhearted comedy/drama, lacks.
|
| 60 |
New Times (L.A.)
Peter Rainer
Primary Colors lacks the buzz and crackle of observed experience; you never feel like you've been plunged into the workings of a real campaign. It's a sham movie about a sham world.
|
| 60 |
Salon.com
A slack, tepid picture stuck in a no man's land between satire and drama.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
An intelligent movie that portrays the mighty without reverence.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
It never really rollicks like a good political satire.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Examiner
Barbara Shulgasser
Underscores everything that was utterly wrong-headed about the original material.
|
| 10 |
Slate
I found it so oppressively smug that I had to get up and pace the aisles three or four times, and I'd have bolted if I hadn't been duty bound to stick it out.
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