- Network: HBO
- Series Premiere Date: Nov 2, 2015
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Critic Reviews
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If the film had been directed by anyone else, it would be only an exhaustively detailed profile of a man of Shakespearean achievements, disappointments and ambitions. But The Diplomat was directed by the subject’s son, David Holbrooke, who gives the film dimension that no other filmmaker could have achieved.
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[David Holbrooke] puts just enough of himself and his extended family into The Diplomat to give it some audience-friendly poignancy.
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What really stands out, though, are the interviews with those who sat across the negotiating table from Holbrooke, such as Bosnian president Bakir Izetbegovic.... Obviously, there’s something intensely personal about Holbrooke’s son writing, directing and narrating the film, but in some respects, the biographical elements are its weakest sections.
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The Diplomat does its stylish best to make the elder Holbrooke’s biographical details--the clip job, basically--zing with ambitious exploit and achievement.... As the film nears the two-hour mark, the son seems not much more closer to finding the father he seeks.