The Greatest 2009

Michael Phillips, At the Movies: Any good actor's career involves a certain amount of toning-up of questionable material, adding dimensions where they're barely suggested on the page. That's what Mulligan is doing here. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: What makes The Greatest work so well is that Feste clearly remembers what it's like to be 18 and to believe your one chance at joy has passed you by. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: It's when the small moments become large ones that Feste overreaches and the shaky performances don't bail her out. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's earnest and grueling and gently contrived, and it lets several good performers play at repressing their feelings before letting them rip in jagged arias of Acting. I wanted to like the movie more than I did; your mileage may vary. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The real surprise is Brosnan's silent, agonized performance; his post-007 career has been one long campaign to prove he's got the goods. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Overwrought in all the wrong ways, The Greatest doesn't do its normally excellent cast any favors. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Although The Greatest is a histrionic mess, at least it looks clean. Read more

Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times: Unfortunately, though its heart is smack in the right place, The Greatest tends to play more like a collection of appropriate, well-acted scenes than as a fully satisfying narrative. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: There's some good acting and a few nice moments. But far from being The Greatest, the movie itself is merely middling. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Dignity dies a million deaths despite the best intentions. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The movie suffocates as scene after shouty scene delivers nothing except yet another variant of the notion that it's a bummer to lose a loved one. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The usual grumpy cynics will undoubtedly call it sentimental and manipulative. Ignore them. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Do not mistake The Greatest for a movie about Muhammad Ali. And do not think its ambitious title indicates its overall quality. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: What a waste of a talented cast! Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The Greatest includes a great performance and a very good one at the center of vagueness and confusion. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Sarandon and Brosnan are very good, indeed, Brosnan surprisingly so. In fact, Brosnan has never been so opened up, so emotional and yet so precise in his work. It's a lovely performance in a film that only sometimes deserves him. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The Greatest assembles a good cast in a clunky, shopworn story. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: No one -- not Brosnan's shell-shocked-by-numbers patriarch nor Mulligan's wide-eyed waif -- comes out of this steroidal pity party unscathed. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though it sometimes feels more like a collection of scenes than a complete story, some moments are so raw and insightful that they feel like a punch to the heart. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: A well-observed study of an affluent family's grief and rebirth after a tragic accident. Read more

Chuck Wilson, Village Voice: A brave actor if not a technically dazzling one, Brosnan gives a moving performance, but he's constantly undercut by the predictability of Allen's woes. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: A meditation on loss by a writer-director whose honesty, sensitivity and intelligence more than mitigate the film's histrionic qualities. Read more