Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man: Critic Reviews

I'm not generally a big fan of tribute concerts, but this is a glorious exception.

Lian Lunson's wonderful documentary portrait combines pieces of an extended interview with Mr. Cohen with a tribute concert at the Sydney Opera House in January 2005.

The raspy-voiced troubadour is celebrated in the mesmerizing documentary Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man.

Bloodless where it should be bold, precious where it should be perceptive and irritating where it should be inspiring.

Whatever the approach, the songs are sturdy enough to support it while remaining resigned and elusive, their words practically glowing in the dark.

[A] rather grating hagiography.

Offering both too little material and too much, the movie leaves us in the bizarre position of understanding its subject no better by the end than we did at the beginning.

The strength and beauty of Cohen's songs is, if anything, enhanced by the treatment they get from such folk legends -- and legends in the making -- as Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and Kate's son and daughter, Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

We hardly get to know Cohen from the biographical shorthand melded to a worshipful tribute show in which the Canadian singer-songwriter never even appears.

Mr. Cohen is funny and charming while being brilliantly observant, so it's especially frustrating that this film about him is so reverent and humorless.

Entertaining, if lightly inquisitive, tribute concert film.

Captures the elegance, wit, spiritual longing and deep hum-ability of Cohen's work.

An odd but enjoyable concoction of biography, music commentary and concert.

A nice auto-portrait.

If you're going to make a documentary about Leonard Cohen, the singer-songwriter, you should have him perform some of his better-known melodies, like Suzanne.

It's not a deep documentary. We learn precious little about the real man underneath his sharp-dressed pose.

As a movie subject, Cohen has proven equally electrifying and elusive.

Cohen frequently isn't talking -- the subject too often goes missing from his own portrait.

Cohen's songs are both universal and deeply personal. Even when we're listening to him alone in our room, we still feel like part of the world.

An affectionate and intimate celebration of the acclaimed troubadour in stirring music and words.

Thorough it's not, but the concert documentary Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man gathers solid interviews, anecdotes, recitations and tribute performances that present a fairly engaging portrait of the wry, dark poet who became a distinct voice.

Next to Cohen's castle of music, place this fetching little monument to the bard of rapturous bereavement.

It's enough to send fans and converts alike to the Cohen library for more of the master himself.