William Arnold

As good as the film is in so many ways, it also altogether rings a bit false and contrived.

For the most part, it's imaginatively staged and consistently entertaining.

It makes for chuckling entertainment and it's fun to watch as it's happening. But its New York characters are not a bit believable, there's no real bite to the humor, and the film never adds up to be more than the sum of its parts.

It's by far the most faithful of the three versions, and beyond this integrity it also offers an ensemble of graceful performances and an epic evocation of 1920s China -- though, like its predecessors, it's far from a perfect crystallization of the novel.

Entertaining and eye-opening.

The script keeps to the point, the performances sparkle with originality, the direction of Jean-François Pouliot mostly has the right touch and the film ultimately generates some of the distinctively eccentric appeal of a classic Ealing Studio comedy of the 1950s.

Fernando Meirelles's MTV-grandstanding worked for "City of God," but it's just not necessary for, and gets in the way of, a script this literate and solid. In the end, The Constant Gardener works in spite of, not because of him.

Loaded down with gritty Glasgow atmosphere and authenticity, and works so well as an ensemble piece

It's an ambitious, eye-filling and thought-provoking work, but it manages to be frustratingly uneven and doesn't really represent Bertolucci at his most fluent. [27 May 1994]

Works best of all as a vehicle for Richard Gere, who has simply never looked better or held the screen more securely.

A movie you've seen many times before, but the setting is different, its characters are well drawn and it delivers its uplifting message with succinctness, sincerity and skill.

His persona clicks, the physical comedy amuses, and its comic vision is tantalizing enough to make us suspect the Old Master still may have at least one masterpiece in him trying to get out.

The stars ultimately carry the day, the film cumulatively builds both an emotional power and tender wisdom that's very affecting.

Pacino has done more Shakespeare than any other currently bankable movie star, he has a feel for the language and he lends a genuine grandeur to Shylock's big speech of self-defense.

A film with a real depth, resonance and texture, and room for an ensemble of supporting characters.

Its strangely paced narrative line, its rich texture of eccentric characters, its high-contrast black-and-white photography - and its very '60s air of innocence and possibility - make this a surprisingly enjoyable little time capsule from a vanished world. [16 Feb 1990]

There's no question where filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter's sympathy lies, but he makes his case leisurely, without hysteria and with much playful screen time devoted to the various interviewees' pet dogs.

Overcooked and simplistic in spots.

T. M. Griffin's script is imaginative and clever.

It is entertaining and eye-filling enough to appeal to a mainstream male audience. [22 May 1992]

Minghella does a good job of dashing any lingering image you might have of the Civil War as a conflict fought along neat geometric battle lines with the nobility of Appomattox.

The horror and spectacle of medieval battle has never been re-created on film before with such ghastly beauty.

The filmmaker's vision is harrowingly ugly and profoundly upsetting every step of the way.

Actually, the film may be too grubby and sordid and ghoulish for its own box-office good. It's certainly going to send more than a few of the New Zealand director's sensitive women fans running from the auditorium.

A cheerful and stylish romantic comedy that's easy on the eyes and ears, and makes few demands on the intellect.

The movie is 23 minutes longer than the Lean version, yet it somehow seems much less evocative of the novel's immense scope and texture. And its Cockney accents are such a strain to understand that as much as a third of the dialogue is indecipherable.

It has its flaws, and traditionalists are likely to think it falls well short of its inspiration, but it works on its own terms, it fills the screen with Burtonesque excitement and it strikes me as one of this tepid movie summer's better offerings.

The film is highly critical of America's counterterrorist efforts, and not at all subtle in making the point that our stupidity and Nazi-like methods have helped create -- and vastly acerbate -- our problems.