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83
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Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie has a mystery, and moral unease, that lingers.
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80
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The New York Times A.O. Scott
Echoes its director's own deportment as a performer, alternating silky smoothness with burlap coarseness. Though Mr. Malkovich stays entirely behind the scenes, he creates a languorous but gripping story of people fighting to stay a step ahead of hopelessness.
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80
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Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
If the screenwriter and director had followed their cinematic instincts fully, they would have collaborated on one of the more satisfying political thrillers in years; instead, they've managed to create three-quarters of one.
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75
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Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Elegantly, even languorously, photographed by Jose Luis Alcaine, who doesn't punch into things but regards them, so that we are invited to think about them. That doesn't mean the movie is slow; it moves with a compelling intensity toward its conclusion.
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75
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Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Malkovich weaves something delicate and devastating.
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75
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USA Today Mike Clark
It has an elusive, haunting quality, but it's too long at 133 minutes, and there aren't many movies these days that get more involving as they progress.
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70
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Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's not a great film, but in its reckless audacity -- an American director working from a British novel set in Latin America, dealing with the largest themes of Latin American art, politics and history -- it's reassuring. Someone's still willing to take a big chance.
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70
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Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Ambitious and uneven.
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50
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San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
An ambitious political thriller, a multilingual film of mood and texture and the occasional haunting image.
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50
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Washington Post Desson Thomson
The only reason this dilemma has any import is thanks to Bardem, who almost single-handedly drags the film along.
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