When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts

Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik

For all his mastery of the filmmaker's craft, Lee's passion and sense of righteousness are what ultimately make the film so compelling.

Detroit Free PressMike Duffy

A documentary masterpiece.

San Francisco ChronicleDavid Wiegand

As a film, "Levees" is a significant and exhaustive achievement.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

"When the Levees Broke" not only ranks among Lee's career bests as a film project, but it is the year's finest TV documentary to date.

People WeeklyTom Gliatto

The whole thing has a beautifully measured pace. [28 Aug 2006, p.35]

New York MagazineJohn Leonard

When the Levees Broke... is the class act of this summer’s documentaries, and the whole year, too--something between a nineteenth-century novel and anthropology with a sword, a combination of Balzac and Fats Domino.

Christian Science MonitorGloria Goodale

Cumulatively, the everyday voices of those who waited in vain for help that never came, mingled with the concern of prominent national figures, presents a poignant picture of official blunders and personal loss, and provides important national lessons if another threat this size hits an American city.

Entertainment WeeklyGilbert Cruz

A harrowing expose. [25 Aug 2006, p.80]

TV GuideMatt Roush

This eloquent, angry film is one of Lee's best and certainly ranks among his most important.

VarietyJoe Leydon

Charged with profound sorrow, galvanizing outrage and defiant resolve, Spike Lee's extraordinary "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" renders the worst natural disaster in U.S. history... as a perfect storm of catastrophic weather, human error, socioeconomic inequity and bureaucratic dysfunction.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteTony Norman

The result is a breathtaking, often depressing and always riveting account of the nation's rapid descent into the contemporary heart of darkness that was New Orleans nearly a year ago.

Seattle Post-IntelligencerMelanie McFarland

One might think that four hours of this is too much; by the end, you realize that it's barely enough.

SlateTroy Patterson

It can get to feel arduous--unflinching explorations of genuine tragedy do tend to wear you down--but it's never gratuitous or dull.

Washington PostLynne Duke

Along with visuals that capture all aspects of the disaster, these bitter, wounded, poignant, thoughtful, expert and often foul-mouthed voices are knitted together in a tightly edited film that manages to sustain four hours without a central narrator.

Newark Star-LedgerMatt Zoller Seitz

One of Lee's greatest and most deeply personal works.

San Jose Mercury NewsCharlie McCollum

A soaring opera set in the key of outrage.

Chicago Sun-TimesDoug Elfman

"When the Levees Broke" is hard to watch. It's hard to take. The anger. The sadness. All over again.

Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart

Despite its biases and often strident tone, “When the Levees Broke” can fairly be called the definitive chronicle of the 11 months since Katrina swept away much of the Crescent City.

The New York TimesStephen Holden

Most of the events in the first two hours will be familiar to anyone who watched television news in the disaster’s early weeks. It is in the last two parts — which examine the uncertain futures of tens of thousands of evacuees, analyze the engineering failures that allowed the flood to breach the levees, and speculate about the city’s future — that the movie rises to greatness.

Los Angeles TimesPaul Brownfield

"When the Levees Broke" isn't so much investigative as impressionistic, the kind of storytelling you still get on a radio show like Ira Glass' "This American Life."

LA WeeklyRobert Abele

If you think the first two hours -- the hurricane, the floods, the convention center, the absent FEMA -- is the disturbing part, brace yourself for the stories in the last two hours: dispersed families, stagnant rebuilding efforts, people finding the dead bodies of their loved ones in houses that were carelessly marked by search teams as having no corpses, the special hell of dealing with insurance companies, etc.

Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron

A comprehensive look at what the storm did to the lives of the people who survived it.

NewsdayVerne Gay

"When the Levees Broke"... is powerful, thoughtful and deeply compassionate. That said, "Levees" is often scattershot and undisciplined.

Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray

[When] "When the Levees Broke" finally gets going, it is, like the water that poured under, over and through those poorly constructed barriers, unstoppable.

Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker

Lee's main mistake is quickly apparent. He lets so many people from New Orleans sound off and reminisce that the program becomes a talking-head epic.