26
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 40Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlVillage VoiceAlan ScherstuhlThis movie's got everything except gravity or a sense of emotional coherence.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe by-the-numbers story never achieves its aimed-for grandeur or intensity, and the striking Turkish locations prove far more interesting than the characters.
- 40Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinLos Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinThis well-intentioned, sumptuously shot tale of love and war, directed by Joseph Ruben, lacks the emotional depth and romantic grandeur to fulfill its epic ambitions.
- 38Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreWhat we’re left with is a botched romance saddled with an over-arching, over-reaching message, one that only the Turks will be quick to embrace.
- 37Washington PostStephanie MerryWashington PostStephanie MerryMorality is hardly the main concern of The Ottoman Lieutenant. Instead, it’s content with hackneyed romance and soaring strings.
- 30VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyThough the film ultimately hinges on a “forbidden” Muslim-Christian romance, almost nothing is made of the enormous hurdles that would be present in this time and place.
- 30The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerThe New York TimesNeil GenzlingerThe Ottoman Lieutenant is an overwrought nurse romance merged with a history lesson, a combination that is hard to take as seriously as the film wants to be taken.
- 25Slant MagazineKeith WatsonSlant MagazineKeith WatsonMore conspicuous than its rote melodrama is the way the film elides the concurrent genocide of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman forces.
- 25IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichA limp and lifeless historical melodrama that aspires to be the “Pearl Harbor” of the preamble to World War I and still falls well short of that ignoble goal, Joseph Ruben’s The Ottoman Lieutenant tries to snatch a love triangle from out beneath the Armenian Genocide but fails to get any of the angles right.
- 20Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenUltimately, this is a movie that’s more about the Ottoman Lieutenant’s Woman than The Ottoman Lieutenant himself – another example of the film’s epic misdirection.