90
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Mr. Peck's gambit works, and the result is a great film and a great performance.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
From the start, a comprehensible, if necessarily simplified, sense of an extremely complicated moment in history.
90
Genuine thriller -- with one crisis hurtling after another, heightened by hauntingly brief moments of peace.
75
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
Gives a white-knuckled, you-are-there account of a politician's dilemma, one whose repercussions are still felt in Africa.
75
Structural shortcomings and all -- gives a neglected giant of African independence his due.
91
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
What matters now, what Lumumba conveys, is the urgent chaos of revolution.
70
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Utterly enthralling even for viewers unfamiliar with the Congo's complicated political history.
75
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
The film does succeed in making the story universal, giving us the drama as well as the history, the fire as well as cool examination. It's a movie that haunts you afterward.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Although the narration is addressed to his wife, we learn little about her, his family or his personal life; he is used primarily as a guide through the milestones of the Congo's brief two-month experiment with democracy.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
Writer/director Raoul Peck never gives us enough intimate moments to let us feel we know the man on a personal level, and he doesn't have the narrative skill to economize the necessary exposition or steer a clear storyline.