General's Daughter, The

Variety Staff(Not credited)

The cinematic equivalent of a disposable airplane read, a hokey, kinky military thriller that's twisty and compelling enough to hook viewers in the mood for a trashy good time.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The General's Daughter is for all those who enjoy mystery/thrillers that neither attempt to break new ground nor are afraid to employ familiar plot devices.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The movie, directed by Simon West isn't bad, although the repeated shots of Campbell lying spread-eagled on the ground, and the amount of detail we're forced to swallow about the horrors she underwent border on the offensive.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A well-made thriller with a lot of good acting, but the death of Elisabeth Campbell is so unnecessarily graphic and gruesome that by the end I felt sort of unclean.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

The General's Daughter isn't a poorly made or acted film, but it's so shallow, hypocritical, and sleazy that it's difficult not to find it repulsive.

Village Voice Gary Dauphin

Plotwise, Daughter is an "aha!"-intensive but thoroughly random mystery.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Travolta again carries a film with enjoyable ease, even if this one remains badly diminished by its perverse streak.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A prosaic, sexually perverse thriller masquerading as a critical look at military injustice.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Isn't the worst film in the world, but its vision of reality seems so stylized, so fake, that I came out of it wondering whether it has the slightest idea what it's talking about.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The feminist veneer is the most deeply disturbing part of this callow thriller, whose fetishizing of a dead woman's body (and a live woman's sexual behavior) is far more questionable than anything even "The Silence of the Lambs" has been accused of.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A middling, so-so thriller about a murder investigation on an Army base, it falls to Earth somewhere between failure and success, inconclusive to the end.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The whole lurid business is undeniably entertaining, but it leaves a bad taste.

Entertainment Weekly Gillian Flynn

The plot is a nonsensical mess -- which just caps off the ugliness.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

It should be said that Travolta delivers a wonderful performance that's lost in a mediocre -- and, at times, rather misogynistic and homophobic -- film.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Watching John Travolta ease into a role is always a pleasure, but this film version of Nelson DeMille's 1992 best-selling mystery novel is a lurid mess.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The acting is fine. The ensemble is strong. The story moves along. Yet a coating of sleaze clings to the film, like bread dipped in batter.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

An expensive-looking new detective thriller that should have been much better.

Newsweek Andrea C. Basora

The General's Daughter purports to be a serious examination of the seedy underbelly of military life, but one has the uneasy sensation that it simply wants to show as much of it on screen as possible.

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

Highly recommended for graduate psychology students in aberrant sexuality, but others can probably skip sans regret.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

To divulge the plot would spoil the experience -- you'll be shocked to discover, and maybe even surprised to learn, just how lame the damn thing really is.

Film Threat Ron Wells

In order to spare you the trauma of this cinematrocity, I'll go ahead and tell you how the film turns out. Who killed the General's Daughter? The filmmakers did.

The New Yorker David Denby

A classic case of Hollywood hypocrisy and ineptitude.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

A slick, supercharged popcorn flick of the erstwhile Bruckheimer-Simpson brigade in which the only thing more shameful than the proceedings is a very well-paid male star assigned to make you less aware of that sucking sound.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

So bloated, self-righteous and exploitative, it's hard to imagine anyone staying to the end, much less demanding a sequel.