The Constant Gardener: Critic Reviews

Meirelles continues to distinguish himself as a director and notches another beautifully shot film.

There is, I realize, always the chance that such a serious, it's-good-for-you description makes The Constant Gardener sound like a lemonade glass of medicine. It's not.

Fernando Meirelles's excellent adaptation of the novel by John le Carré is likely to linger in your mind and may even trouble your conscience.

There is a terrific pulse of energy in this film, a voltage which drives it over two hours.

A masterwork of suspense, romance and political intrigue. It is a taut and gripping thriller that dazzles the eyes and engages the brain in a way that few recent films have come close to approaching.

If it sends audiences home to log on to the Amnesty International website, terrific -- but that still doesn't make it a very good movie.

For an English-language movie with recognizable stars, its measure of social maturity can be startling, but it's also a bristling demonstration of the formal difficulty of liberal narrative, and of ambitious third-world tourist-cinema.

A slick, fast-paced production with first-rate performances and an emotional punch you won't soon forget.

The Constant Gardener manages to fight through its own pretensions to deliver a tale you care about, featuring characters you care for.

... Ralph Fiennes gives one of the year's subtlest, yet most exciting, screen performances ...

The fact that none of the above is satisfactorily answered, and that we nevertheless emerge from the movie feeling nourished and stirred, is a tribute to Meirelles and, of course, to le Carre.

This is one of the year's best films.

A sweaty, vital masterpiece that's always one step ahead of its audience.

Fernando Meirelles, codirector of City of God, stresses old-fashioned storytelling and takes full advantage of his cast, including Danny Huston.

The filmmaker's assurance and vision in reimagining the novel are downright inspiring.

Viewers who like real-world issues interwoven with their fiction -- much in the style of author John Le Carre, whose novel is the basis for this movie -- should find plenty to chew on.

This is not a movie that will shock you or thrill you or rock your world. Instead, it will move you, it will stick with you, it will give you pause and effect you in ways not easily described -- which is something the best films always do.

The Constant Gardener is more like walking past a series of paintings than watching a movie. You can admire the skill that went into work, but it never carries you along.

There's much to absorb here, all played out against a teeming canvas of human turmoil, in a blistering human drama that is positively electrifying.

Topically urgent and ripe with outrage over the myriad injustices visited upon the African poor.

Its creeping pace will bore many viewers, but it'll inspire more than a few to march in the streets.

The Constant Gardener is one of the great films of the year.

It harkens back to an era when movies about socially relevant causes came without irony and with the conviction that wide exposure could bring about needed changes. In other words, this isn't your usual multiplex offering.

Yes, the cast is certainly seductive, and the direction often beguiling, yet ultimately we're left with a distinct sense of abandonment, of a story insufficiently told.

Meirelles clearly trusts his actors, particularly Fiennes and Weisz: The plot of The Constant Gardener is fairly intricate, but in the end, the story is told mostly in their faces.