| Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): March 17, 2021 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
14
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
|
Watch Now
Critic Reviews
The gripping documentary Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal shifts the spotlight back to Singer, played in re-enactments by Matthew Modine with dialogue taken directly from wiretaps, to understand how a flip flop-clad former basketball coach rebranded himself as an academic glad-hander for the 1 percent.
Read full review
Movie NationMar 20, 2021
It’s a healthy reminder that fighting corruption, even in something as mundane as college admissions, is vital to society’s health, that Americans need to at least believe there’s a “level playing field,” and that not guaranteeing that is how we mediocre our way from the top of the world to Banana Republic in just a generation.
Read full review
RogerEbert.comMar 17, 2021
The unique approach mostly works, although it does leave a few questions unanswered regarding a case that’s kind of still unfolding. Most of all, Smith succeeds by capturing how this isn’t a case about an individual or the many parents who worked with him to cheat the system, but how the system itself is deeply broken.
Read full review
There are degrees of villainy in “Operation Varsity Blues,” but it’s hard to peg the privileged, bribe-paying parents as the worst of a bad lot. Besides, they have to live not just with their criminal convictions but with those wiretapped conversations, in which they reveal what they really think of their own children.
Read full review
The creative workaround does drop you into the middle of the shady-as-hell action in a way that, say, recordings playing over a close-up of a grainy photo does not. But it also starts to become more than a little distracting, and you find yourself tuning into the performances instead of the particulars of the case.
Read full review
Despite the can't-miss subject matter, Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal makes a near-fatal misstep, heavily using dramatic recreations in a way that leaves this Netflix production somewhere between Lifetime movie and documentary. The salacious aspects of the scandal still earn a passing grade, but due to the unwieldy hybrid format, just barely.
Read full review
Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score













