Harrison's Flowers 2000

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: MacDowell and Brody give emotionally galvanizing performances, but too often Flowers arranges itself on a bier that goes flat. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Ends up wilting in the cold light of recent and real heroism, which may not be this photogenic but has the advantage of being incredible and true. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: The script's judgment and sense of weight is way, way off. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Chouraqui brings documentary-like credibility to the horrors of the killing field and the barbarism of 'ethnic cleansing.' Read more

Loren King, Chicago Tribune: A powerhouse of a film about modern journalism and war. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: A stupefying mix of action, politics and melodrama that is as vaguely condescending as the inept but well-meaning pictures about apartheid from the 1980's. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Shatteringly realistic action sequences lift this fictionalized treatment of the Serbian-Croatian fighting notches above its sentimental domestic framing device. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The picture, despite impeccable intentions, is an oddly mixed bag. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: We may get the full visceral impact of a ruthless army on the warpath but no sense of the devilish complexity of the Balkans conflict. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: It uses the pain and violence of war as background material for color. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: A chintzy melodrama gussied up as hair-trigger combat 'reality,' but there's no denying the vividness with which the French cowriter-director Elie Chouraqui has visualized the chaos of Croatia. Read more

Ray Conlogue, Globe and Mail: Hogwash American sentimentality in a film that shows raped children and brutish soldiers is both disorienting and troubling. Read more

Manohla Dargis, L.A. Weekly: Visceral, unrelenting, affecting and, as often, exasperating. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: The cast fits very convincingly into the nightmarish landscape of a ravaged country. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Offers a glimpse of what happened in 1991 as Milosovich bulldozed his way into power over the corpses of his enemies. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The scenes of carnage are so well-staged and convincing that they make the movie's story even harder to believe. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: Split between the bloody relentlessness of the war scenes and the verging-on-schmaltz sentiment on the home front. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Remarkable for its power to immerse us in the terror, panic and sheer adrenalized rush of the photojournalist's existence. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It's the unsettling images of a war-ravaged land that prove more potent and riveting than the unlikely story of Sarah and Harrison. Read more

David Rooney, Variety: Provides powerful drama thanks to its trenchant core story and harrowing re-creation of the brutal chaos of war. Read more

Jessica Winter, Village Voice: The Balkans provide the obstacle course for the love of a good woman. Read more