When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

Name: When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
Genre: Documentary
Released: August 21, 2006
Duration: 255 min
Rating: 89
Cast: Darleen Asevedo, Gralen Bryant Banks, Harry Belafonte, Jay Asevedo, John Barry

2006

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Ratings

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When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

Movie Details & Credits

Home Box Office (HBO) | Release Date: August 21, 2006 | TV-MA

Starring: Darleen Asevedo, Gralen Bryant Banks, Harry Belafonte, Jay Asevedo, John Barry, Lee Arnold, Robert Bea, Shelton Shakespear Alexander, Terence Blanchard, Wilhelmina Blanchard

Summary: An examination of the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Director: Spike Lee

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 255 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

David Wiegand

As a film, "Levees" is a significant and exhaustive achievement. Although it can be argued that it might have been even more effective if it had been edited down a bit, the power of its human stories compensates for whatever minor flaws it has. Read full review

100

Don R. Lewis

All hyperbole aside, “When the Levees Broke” is one of the most important film documents ever made. It’s an honest, fair and unflinching look at one of the greatest, and saddest, natural disasters to hit our shores. Read full review

100

Noel Murray

Spike Lee's documentary When The Levees Broke runs four hours, but Lee arguably says what he needs to say in the brilliant opening montage, which cuts together footage of New Orleans in the 20th century, including Mardi Gras parades, segregation marches, and flood after flood. Read full review

Josh Larsen

Rather than take a histrionic approach, Lee trusts his four-hour running time, allowing the evidence of governmental indifference and incompetence to quietly pile up until it becomes cumulatively enraging. Read full review

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

This is a heartfelt movie, a documentary unafraid to spread itself across its vast subject matter, and a fierce denunciation of the arrogant political classes, still in denial about one of the biggest tragedies in American history. Read full review

Troy Patterson

Voices pile in asking for nothing more or less than to make themselves clear. When the Levees Broke is a monument of oral history. Without fanfare, Lee orchestrates a multivoiced blues for the common man. Read full review

Joanna Weiss

There are moments -- just a few of them -- when the film . . . does feel a bit like work, a relentless civics lesson about the storm and its still-unfolding aftermath. Read full review

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User Reviews

JLuis_001

Jul 17, 2022

The biggest failure of the entire George W. Bush administration. Much more than Iraq, because this was in his homeland and showed how the richest nation in the world was helpless to assist its people.
And add to that all the reasons discussed here.

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