Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
Phase 4 Films | Release Date: July 30, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
NPRJeannette Catsoulis
If your sole image of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is that of a lanky, silk-jammied sybarite strolling the grounds of his mansion with a jiggling blond on either arm, Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel will knock your socks off. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Yet as ridiculous as Hefner's life sometimes seems, he has been an exemplary citizen, as this documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Brigitte Berman spells out. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss
Watching the film is like reading Playboy for the articles. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
The film is at its most potent delineating Hefner's role in the American civil rights movement, going beyond the pages of his magazine. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
As for the man who invented it all, he remains a mystery in the film, living out his days in sybaritic bliss. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesGary Goldstein
Unfortunately, Berman skips past the darker implications of Hefner's sexual universe and omits discussion of how the periodical business -- and access to erotic imagery -- has changed in the Internet age. Still, the movie remains an involving look at an American icon as well as an adept snapshot of our national zeitgeist from the McCarthy era through the Reagan years. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
The Hefner we meet here is the likable rogue we already know. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineMark Keizer
Hugh Hefner has earned the gift of a fawning, non-confrontational greatest hits package and that's exactly what he's received, even if it's not what we necessarily wanted. As such, this will only preach to the converted (and maybe the perverted) and is best suited to DVD or cable. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
One wants to find enlightenment - or at least entertainment - in this reconsideration of Playboy and of Hefner. But it's tainted. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The title – Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel – is fine as far as it goes. But if you leave out "octogenarian mammophile" and "calendar fetishist," you leave something essential out of the story. Read full review
50
VarietyRob Nelson
This fawning docu goes to lengths to portray the octogenarian Playboy magazine founder as among the greatest figures of 20th-century American popular culture, while only cursorily acknowledging his status as a pioneering softcore pornographer. Read full review
50
MovielineMichelle Orange
At 84 he describes himself as being kept alive by young women's laughter and infernal baby-talk, marking off perhaps his final, groaning aspirational standard. Almost makes me feel sorry for those men still trying to keep up. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
A very mixed bag. Despite some faint gestures in the direction of journalistic balance, it plays a lot like a two-hour infomercial for the Playboy publisher's historical importance, philosophical depth and personal greatness. Read full review
50
Village VoiceNick Pinkerton
Playboy "gave us some of the best literature of our time," opines noted literary critic Tony Bennett, among a cast of mostly ridiculous and redundant talking heads. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
If any life story should make for a compelling biography, it's certainly Hugh Hefner's. Unfortunately, this love letter is so lacking in any edge, the end result is not just unsexy but unforgivably staid. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
A proper profile of Hefner would start and end with sex, and not merely glance on casualties like Dorothy Stratten (and even the loveless Hef himself). The movie can't seem to get it up. Read full review
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