Trumbo Reviews
Top CriticWhat kind of international revolutionary whines about his family being made unwelcome among the tykes of the bourgeoisie?
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
Filmcritic.com
unimaginative ... rendering a film that should have been impassioned and full of life and humor into something static and dull.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Film-Forward.com
Trumbo's vivid archival footage and interviews share less-than-equal time, though, with an all-star cast ... taking turns reading from the writer's letters and speeches.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
tonymedley.com
The film only comes alive with archival footage of the HUAC hearings and interviews with Trumbo himself. When the letter-readers come on, it slows to a snails-pace.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/10
Film Journal International
...the film's inability to put a new spin on well-covered material... means the definitive work about this fascinating figure is yet to come.
ReelTalk Movie Reviews
What could have been a human- and Hollywood-interest film turns out to be a not very successful experiment.
Screen International
Trumbo is hurt by an unwillingness to actually explore Trumbo's own politics and delve into his actual beliefs about communism, Stalin or Marxist ideology.
New York Press
Myth and piety are the film's guiding principles -- documenting truth isn't.
Balancing the political and the personal is a smart idea, though the resulting togglethon ends up being the uneasiest of marriages.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/6
This biography is celebratory to a fault. There is scant context about the history and political climate that led to the blacklist.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
The substance of those letters, along with documentary footage and a touching appearance by Kirk Douglas, throws a baleful light on a bleak chapter of American history.
Boxoffice Magazine
More successful at evoking sympathy for Dalton Trumbo than offering a detailed study of the Red Scare vis-à-vis the screenwriters known as the "Hollywood Ten," it nevertheless provides a fascinating introduction to the always-relevant topic.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
San Francisco Examiner
As the story of a fierce, beleaguered individualist, 'Trumbo' is stirring and informative, though perhaps not as thorough as it could be.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Cinematical
An amazing primer on how to stand by your principles even as the unprincipled knock you around.
ComingSoon.net
A fine counterpart to Good Night, and Good Luck and a unique amalgam of talking heads and theatrics, the story of Dalton Trumbo and how he and his family dealt with being blacklisted is an amazing one.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Trumbo was initiated by two of Trumbo's children, but their attempt to personalize the film isn't quite personal enough.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Slant Magazine
Trumbo is most focused when it lets the man and his peers testify directly.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Playback:stl
Dalton Trumbo showed that it was possible, even within the Hollywood system, to deal seriously with issues like freedom and personal responsibility.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
NewsBlaze
An overdue vindication of a true patriot and a timely reminder to continue challenging authority in the face of the Patriot Act.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Film Threat
By itself, the golden age of Trumbo's career would make for an inspired documentary. But, alas, history situates him in another story, a tragedy that nearly consumed him and many other members of Hollywood.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
