The Reluctant Fundamentalist
IFC Films | Release Date: April 26, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
13
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMay 9, 2013
The Reluctant Fundamentalist will likely make some people mad because of the way it holds the United States responsible for the repercussions of its actions in the world. Like Changez himself, the film has a complicated relationship with the superpower. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 2, 2013
Deliberately ambiguous, The Reluctant Fundamentalist provides just enough answers while leaving us with more than enough questions. It's a film that demands discussion afterward. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 26, 2013
Timeliness is certainly on the side of Mira Nair’s uneven but fascinating The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comOmer M. MozaffarJun 11, 2013
Nair has made a very smart film, whose ambitions sometimes exceed the piece's depths. Read full review
75
NPRElla TaylorApr 25, 2013
Nair likes to have fun even when her material is somber, and for this movie she deploys a rich palette and a multi-culti but mostly kitsch-free score that fuses old and new with a lovely Sufi devotional piece, and is peppered with Pakistani pop. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissApr 29, 2013
Nair sleekly manages the story’s thriller aspects, especially the kidnapping. But this is a character study, and she has found some superb actors to fill it. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 25, 2013
The result inevitably pushes too hard at times and can't help but stray into melodrama, yet the film does an admirable job of transplanting the novel's thoughtful concerns into a fast-moving suspense context. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJonathan KieferApr 23, 2013
At times it's dense and sluggish, too much like a novel. But there is some exhilaration to be had. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanMay 9, 2013
Since the revelation of Wall Street's culpability for the 2008 economic crisis, though, the arc of Changez's transformation feels almost clichéd, despite Ahmed's earnest, effective performance. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubSam AdamsApr 24, 2013
This might be the best week for The Reluctant Fundamentalist to open or the worst, but the timing doesn’t matter when the powder is damp. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 9, 2013
Despite the charismatic efforts of the British actor Ahmed, The Reluctant Fundamentalist gets bogged down in proselytizing and plot. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 9, 2013
It’s a simple story, really, but Nair mucks it up with the hot-button suspense of the framing scenes: surging crowds and rooftop standoffs, panicky cellphone calls and crackling walkie-talkies. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonMay 14, 2013
Riz Ahmed is superb as Changez (pronounced Chan-Gez, not like the Bowie song), Read full review
60
EmpireDamon WiseMay 6, 2013
Ahmed excels and the set-up is compelling but ultimately this is middle rank stuff from the Monsoon Wedding director. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 28, 2013
Though Nair leaves us guessing as to Changez’s motivations, she also uses a pretty heavy hand in laying out the movie’s themes. The changes between the novel and the screenplay are equally unsubtle, especially in regards to the ill-conceived romance. Read full review
60
Film.comStephanie ZacharekApr 24, 2013
Although The Reluctant Fundamentalist raises some complicated questions, in the end, it doesn’t challenge that much. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichApr 23, 2013
Ticking-time-bomb suspense is not Nair’s forte, so she relies on Michael Andrews’s Middle East–inflected score to do most of the heavy lifting in the present-day scenes, which feel shapeless and perfunctory. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Robert Everett-GreenMay 17, 2013
It’s a timely narrative subject, but its treatment in The Reluctant Fundamentalist is fundamentally flawed. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghMay 9, 2013
Mira Nair has crafted a handsome but clubfooted film that lurches through predictable hot spots. It most disappoints as a thriller, the flashbacks and voiceovers and romantic entanglements so dominating the proceedings you forget that someone is bound and gagged in real time. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirApr 26, 2013
This movie feels a little half-baked to me in the sense that it carries an exceedingly complicated intellectual agenda below the surface of a conventional thriller, and doesn’t execute either level as well as it might. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartApr 26, 2013
Alas, the film’s relevance — and ultimately sane upshot — is buried beneath a meandering and oftimplausible plot. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineAbhimanyu DasApr 15, 2013
The laziest sort of political cinema, full of straw men and finger-pointing, wrapped up in an awards-friendly bow by its beautiful cinematography and a manipulative world music-y score. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMay 17, 2013
Lacks any real sense of vitality. And no matter how worthwhile a film's message is, it's difficult for audiences to care if the path to the payoff so often feels like a slog. Read full review
40
VarietyJustin ChangApr 26, 2013
Mira Nair’s latest immigrant saga saddles itself with a laborious narrative structure and half-baked thriller elements in a misguided attempt to open up what should be an intimate, introspective story. Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensApr 26, 2013
For all the contemporary relevance of the issues it explores, there’s something morally and aesthetically muffled about The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Nair is so busy making sure we never lose sympathy for her handsome and charming protagonist that the film ultimately founders in a tangle of humanist platitudes. Read full review
33
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonApr 23, 2013
Kiefer Sutherland feels somewhat miscast as the mentor, but nowhere near as badly as Hudson is as the love interest. In all fairness, it’s a nightmare of a part, an artist (whose art is, as it turns out, is terrible) haunted by the recent death of her boyfriend, and seemingly unable to read basic human feelings and emotion. But Hudson doesn’t really help things, coming across more often than not as unintentionally funny. Read full review
30
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 25, 2013
By literalizing the idea of American military aggression and all that it implies Ms. Nair doesn’t just invest Mr. Hamid’s story with Hollywood-style beats, she also completely drains it of ambiguity. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 25, 2013
The movie's failures are all the more unfortunate because they detract from its central and conspicuous success, the performance of Riz Ahmed in the title role. Mr. Ahmed turns the quicksilver quality of the book's internal monologue into a tour de force of his own creation. He's a bright star in a dim constellation. Read full review
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