The Conspirator
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: April 15, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
17
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedApr 12, 2011
No matter where your political leanings lie, the great thing about The Conspirator is that Mr. Redford is wise enough to let the audience decide what the parallels are. See it, enjoy a ripping good yarn and learn something. Read full review
91
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 13, 2011
Redford proves that at 75 he can still choose meaningful projects and deliver them with intelligence. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 14, 2011
The cast is uniformly outstanding, a pleasure to watch. It's a more toned-down role for the often-fiery McAvoy, and it suits him. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 21, 2011
Redford methodically presents the injustices piled on Surratt and suggests what might have prompted her stoicism. But James D. Solomon's script is often flat, perhaps in a misguided effort to be stately. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 16, 2011
Redford considers this material in an unusually literate and thoughtful historical film, working from years of research by his screenwriter, James Solomon. I found it absorbing and relevant today. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickApr 15, 2011
Redford's history lesson illustrates the old maxim that those who forget history are bound to repeat it. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 15, 2011
The film pivots on McAvoy's powerfully implosive performance as a man trying to grow beyond his own prejudices. His scenes with Wright, under Redford's nuanced guidance, give this film its timely resonance and its grieving heart. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 14, 2011
It's precisely that fear that Redford sets out to explore. The Conspirator is all about the un-American things Americans can do when feeling collectively threatened. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyApr 14, 2011
This provocative account of a war-weary administration that denied Surratt her right to a fair trial starts slow but builds momentum in the scenes with Wright and Evan Rachel Wood as Surratt's flinty daughter, Anna. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreApr 13, 2011
May not be as emotionally compelling as John Ford's work ("The Prisoner of Shark Island"), but it's every bit as meticulously crafted. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondApr 16, 2011
This handsome period piece should develop a strong afterlife on DVD and in schools. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 14, 2011
The resolution and strength of Wright's unimpeachable performance makes the whole story seem flesh-and-blood real in a way that it would not otherwise be. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesApr 14, 2011
The real standout is Kevin Kline as secretary of war Edwin Stanton. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissApr 11, 2011
Wright's performance is the key to a movie that pulses with the sick thrill of historical discovery. The Conspirator reminds us that. when we surrendered so many of our Constitutional rights and judgments after 9/11, it wasn't the first time. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 16, 2011
Essentially The Conspirator is a courtroom drama with occasional bulletins from the outside world. It plays out to its predictable end with the doggedness, if not the verve, of a "Law and Order" episode. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie ZacharekApr 14, 2011
The bad news is that The Conspirator - doesn't have enough crackle. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 14, 2011
In The Conspirator, Wright announces in no uncertain terms that she is back and more than ready for her close-up. Read full review
60
NPRMark JenkinsApr 15, 2011
Historical records being what they are, the filmmakers are forced to speculate about certain things, but where facts are known they generally adhere to them. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 14, 2011
Like his 2007 political drama, "Lions for Lambs," Robert Redford's fictionalized chronicle of Mary Surratt's 1865 trial is high-minded and slow-moving. Some may chafe at his unsubtle sermonizing, but strong central performances will reward the patient. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 12, 2011
There's no Deep Throat this time, but Tom Wilkinson does his best Ben Bradlee as a hawkish legal mentor, while Kevin Kline coos menacingly as Lincoln's Nixonian war secretary, Edwin Stanton, a man seeking to hang prisoners out of political expediency. It all seems a little forced. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinApr 11, 2011
The screenwriter, James Solomon, does the poor job only a liberal could at making the case for a Cheneyesque "dark side," and he isn't helped by Kline's wooden acting. Too bad. The Conspirator is eloquent enough to let the other side have its say. Read full review
58
IndieWireEric KohnApr 12, 2011
While Redford frames the drama with a tense atmosphere, it doesn't shake the sense that we're watching a tame made-for-TV affair. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyApr 29, 2011
Redford hasn't moved too far here from an earlier political-thriller template: With its skulduggery, late-night meetings and the contemptuous political cabal out to thwart justice, The Conspirator can be thought of as "All the President's Men – The Lincoln Edition." Read full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangApr 16, 2011
This methodical courtroom drama is charged with impassioned performances and an unimpeachable liberal message. But its stodgy emphasis on telling over showing will limit its reach to Civil War buffs and self-selecting older viewers. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensApr 16, 2011
Less a movie than an extended re-enactment from a History Channel documentary, the movie is stagey, preachy, and long on exposition. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanApr 16, 2011
The movie is stiff-jointed and dull. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 15, 2011
Instead of entertaining us, director Robert Redford offers us a handsome history lesson that's as dry as a hardtack biscuit. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 14, 2011
An important film, on an important subject, that has had the life beaten out of it by Robert Redford, a man who should know better. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 14, 2011
The film has little flash of life and energy. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 14, 2011
Heartbreakingly average, director Robert Redford's The Conspirator errs in the way so many films do, especially films about unsung pieces of American history. It focuses on the wrong character. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneApr 11, 2011
In The Conspirator, one wishes that the director had found the grace to touch upon, rather than belabor, the parallels between the conspirators of 1865 and the present-day inmates of Guantánamo. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianShawn LevyApr 14, 2011
The film is as one-sided and overstacked as anything her prosecutors dreamed up. And the craft of the thing is so pedestrian as to crawl. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinApr 14, 2011
The Conspirator should skip theaters altogether and become the first film released straight to middle-school history classes, where the standards for what can generously be deemed entertainment are much lower. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. ScottApr 14, 2011
The few glimpses we catch of the Ford's Theater production of "Our American Cousin" are unfortunately the liveliest and most convincing moments in this well-meaning, misbegotten movie. Read full review
30
Village VoiceNick PinkertonApr 12, 2011
The film is a burdensome two hours. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezApr 15, 2011
The Conspirator hits a new nadir for Redford: Sitting through this stage-bound, talky, stiffly-acted movie reminded me of having to endure the Hall of Presidents attraction at Walt Disney World (one of the few existing bits of proof that Disney had a dark and evil side). Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 14, 2011
Like most other members of an excellent cast that includes James McAvoy, Kevin Kline and Tom Wilkinson, she (Robin Wright) has come under the deadening directorial hand of Robert Redford. Read full review
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