People vs. Larry Flynt, The

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Love proves she is not a rock star pretending to act, but a true actress, and Harrelson matches her with his portrait of a man who has one thing on his mind, and never changes it.

Film.com John Hartl

Raucously entertaining.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The film catches us by surprise in its moving portrayal of the love between Larry and Althea, played by Courtney Love in a performance that glides from kinky abandon to stark tragedy.

USA Today Mike Clark

Forman finesses the story's grimmer aspects as he did in "Cuckoo's Nest," and his ability to switch moods on a dime remains unsurpassed.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Enormously entertaining and surprisingly touching.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

A blazing, unlikely triumph about a man who is nobody's idea of a movie hero. Smart, funny, shamelessly entertaining and perfectly serious too.

Newsweek David Ansen

Courtney Love's performance as stripper Althea Leasure is an amazement. Funny, unfettered and almost scarily alive in front of a camera, she's the definition of a "natural."

Film.com Robert Horton

Forman imbues the material with exactly the right dry, satirical flavor, yet this story is still a Frank Capra little-guy-against-the-system picture.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Provocative and engrossing.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Vastly entertaining.

Film.com Sean Means

Althea is a ferociously vibrant character, and Love goes all out to infuse her with a wildness seldom seen on screen. Love holds nothing back, and her energy and her heartache energize the movie.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

There's a gentleness and open-mindedness in that touch and throughout the film that's a little at odds with the shallower script. But, in the end, that humanity pays. [27 Dec 1996]

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Tells a good, intelligent story that keeps us interested and involved.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

With its fine courtroom scenes, excellent performances, great writing and superb direction it reminds me more than anything else of Barbet Schroeder's "Reversal of Fortune."

Film Threat Chris Gore

I loved it. I'm glad it was made...Film Threat's association with Flynt would sometimes bring gasps of outrage or phones slammed down in disgust. Now, it brings curiosity and even admiration. Kinda weird, huh?

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

With "Flynt," Love does what Madonna has been trying to do for 12 years -- create a performance filled with humor, intelligence and soul.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The result is good dirty fun, flecked with enough wit to help you overlook the relatively barren characterization.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Milos Forman's drama is full of outrageous material that will offend liberals and conservatives alike, but it's positioned on the cutting edge of contemporary debates about free speech, feminism, and the effects of mass media on modern society.

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

But long after you've grown tired of [Flynt's] escapades, the scenes in which he and Althea support one another against the slings an arrows of outrageous fortune are touching and, ultimately, genuinely tragic.

Time Richard Corliss

Jogs from one incident to the next, amassing information and dispensing attitude but rarely creating real characters. That's supposed to be director Milos Forman's forte; here, though, nearly everyone is an enemy or a stooge.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski's script may in spots be as much of a skim job as their one for "Ed Wood," but it's almost as sweet and as likable, and if the movie can't ever practice what it and its hillbilly hero preach--the only "beaver" shot in the movie involves a corpse--its heart is certainly in the right place.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

"Larry Flynt" should have a slick, whorish look, but there's no juice in Forman's sleaze. Hustler's centerfolds look like Renoirs next to the cold-eyed way Forman shoots women's bodies.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

We're really celebrating Hollywood's freedom to create biographies of anyone, no matter how high or low on the social ladder, and still come up with the same banal characteristics, messages and conclusions. In this sense, The People vs. Larry Flynt doesn't champion, so much as squander, freedom of speech.

Film.com Tom Keogh

In all, this film is a major disappointment with a few powerful highlights.