Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

Of all the shocks in the riveting and timely political thriller Paradise Now, the most unsettling may be the dignity bestowed on a pair of prospective Palestinian suicide bombers.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker

It's a volatile subject and Abu-Assad's thoughtful thriller stokes the debate.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

Along the way, Paradise Now sustains a mood of breathless suspense. Politics aside, the movie is a superior thriller whose shrewdly inserted plot twists and emotional wrinkles are calculated to put your heart in your throat and keep it there.

TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox

A thoughtful, unsparing look at a controversial subject: suicide bombing.

Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

The film is better than the recent "The War Within," which tried for the same things, but ultimately, and perhaps unavoidably, we are left face to face with the unknowable.

L.A. Weekly by Ella Taylor

Abu-Assad, who made the lovely 2002 film "Rana's Wedding," is a far more gifted observer of the everyday than he is an action director, which is why, in Paradise Now, he productively sidetracks into a persuasive and often very funny portrait of the irrationalities of life under occupation.

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

A powerful, poignant, provocative drama, it gets its strength from its dispassion, from an uncompromising determination to explain rather than justify or condemn, to put a human face on incomprehensible acts.

The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann

Even though no reasonably well-informed viewer will learn much factual information from the picture, it grips; it even torments, because it lets us move and breathe and shiver and resolve with two particular young men.

Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten

The details are intriguing, but ultimately we learn little more about what's in their heads.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

Shot in the West Bank, the film radiates authenticity. Even when he plays the action like a thriller, Abu-Assad is in search of a deeper truth.

Village Voice by J. Hoberman

Paradise Now suffers from some odd continuity glitches and takes a few too many narrative curves en route to an overly convoluted ending, but the heart of the movie is as tense as the bus ride in Hitchcock's "Sabotage."

The A.V. Club by Tasha Robinson

While "War Within" takes a deeper, more personal look at its protagonist, Paradise Now is a more ambitious film that better contextualizes its central characters and their politics.

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

While nothing truly new or shocking emerges, the film does bring clarity and compassion to its depiction of an act that baffles, angers and sickens people the world over.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Ken Tucker

The terseness of a thriller, the clarity of a documentary, and a mixture of high drama and low humor.

Variety by Derek Elley

Handsomely shot in widescreen, mostly on actual West Bank locations, and well-played by the cast, pic lays out the issues in an accessible but rather too over-correct way, seemingly eager to please all parties at the expense of real passion.

Film Threat by Phil Hall

Filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, who helmed the excellent "Rana's Wedding," missed the boat on this one. He may have hoped to give a human voice to the suicide bombers, but instead he gave them a misfired movie.