When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
Home Box Office (HBO) | Release Date: August 21, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
89
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The A.V. ClubNoel 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
100
EmpireWilliam Thomas
The people do the talking in this rage-fuelled doc and only the stone hearted will fail to be moved by the resilience of the affected and the inaction of their government. Read full review
100
Film ThreatDon 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
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The same didactic instincts that sometimes mar Lee's fictional filmmaking serve him well as a documentarian and eulogist, both with Four Little Girls and this film, a record of the worst natural disaster in American history. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid 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
VarietyJoe Leydon
Lee takes time to explain the stories behind the stories, to unearth revealing details under-reported in other accounts, and to identify individuals among the faceless masses of unfortunates. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorGloria Goodale
Cumulatively, the everyday voices of those who waited in vain for help that never came, mingled with the concern of prominent national figures, presents a poignant picture of official blunders and personal loss, and provides important national lessons if another threat this size hits an American city. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The movie is heroic in the delicacy of its craftsmanship. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh 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
88
Slant MagazinePaul Schrodt
Lee foregoes useless speechifying, opting instead to create an epic document of New Orleans’s struggle, death, abandonment and subsequent reconstruction (a requiem in four acts) that should prove instructive for years to come, if not in facts than for its emotional scope: an up-close, deeply empathetic and soulful journey through the stories that make up this catastrophe. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter 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
80
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Although seeds of hope are woven into this tapestry of rage, sorrow and disbelief, the inability of government at almost every level to act quickly and decisively leaves you aghast at what amounts to a collective failure of will. Read full review
80
SlateTroy 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
80
SalonCynthia Joyce
It's not necessarily the drama inherent in these stories that moved some to tears -- and it's possible that some audiences won't recognize the restraint Lee exercised in rendering them -- it's the heartbreaking matter-of-factness with which they're being retold. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
The overall effect of the film is a case study in how dispassionate leaders sow mistrust in their most needy citizens. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeJoanna 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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