The Whistleblower Reviews
Top Critic
A first-rate one-woman-against-the-system drama, a film benefiting from grim recreations of an ugly reality and a stellar cast determined to expose it.
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| Original Score: 3/4
In Weisz's eyes, we see Kathryn's transformation from a public servant doing what's expected of her to a crusader driven to by her own conscience. Her performance is terrific; the movie, sadly, is not.
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| Original Score: 2/4
"The Whistleblower'' effectively depicts the paranoia that builds as an increasingly frustrated and outraged Bolkovac is thwarted at every turn.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Powerful and revolting, The Whistleblower makes you feel as if it could have been even more powerful and revolting.
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| Original Score: B
You come away from watching the film with a moral bellyache.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
Part thriller and part harrowing account of an outrageous, based-on-facts story of official corruption in the former Yugoslavia, "The Whistleblower" is a tense and shattering drama.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Director Larysa Kondracki's debut film is unsparing in its portrayal of sexual trafficking in a supposedly civilized world. But it's valiant, too -- especially regarding Rachel Weisz's performance as reluctant crusader Kathryn Bolkovac.
Somewhere inside this movie is a thought-provoking thriller about the collateral damage caused by geopolitical do-gooders. Too bad it never emerges.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Derives its strength from Rachel Weisz's intelligent performance as the real-life Bolkovac.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Larysa Kondracki's first feature successfully avoids the major pitfalls of the activist docudrama: the main character's heroism never overshadows the larger issue at hand, nor does exposition gum up the storytelling.
In Canadian director Larysa Kondracki's gripping based-on-a-true-story debut feature The Whistleblower, Rachel Weisz delivers a subtle yet riveting performance.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
It reminds us that there are those, in war or in peace, who will always seek to degrade and exploit, with a precious few others to speak out against injustice.
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| Original Score: 3/4
A classic example of a film that doesn't trust the strength of its source material - or the intelligence of its audience.
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| Original Score: 1/4
Gradually, as her investigation deepens, and we see the true hideousness of what she is uncovering, the movie achieves urgency and clarity of purpose.
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| Original Score: 3/4
These cases rarely seem to result in change, and the stories continue. We can only guess what may be going unreported. "The Whistleblower" offers chilling evidence of why that seems to be so.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
That you leave the film with nagging doubts and questions is not a problem. That you leave it with a sense of disappointment, however, is.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
The Whistleblower is frustratingly uneven, but at least it affords us the rare opportunity these days to meet up with a movie hero who isn't wearing jammies and a cape.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
It's a little sluggish in the first act perhaps, and not as slick as some, but it's still more authentic than most, and angrier, too.
It's a thriller sobering enough in its graphic portrayal of forced violence against women that it would be tough to watch if not for the controlled fury Weisz brings to her performance as a down-to-earth avenging angel.
Full Review
| Original Score: 70
The film swings from melodrama to sermonizing, both blunting the human drama that needs to come to the fore. Weisz holds the ground in a performance of ferocity and feeling.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Director Larysa Kondracki's fictionalized account of a true story is underserved by a melodramatic script; the result is like a film of a "60 Minutes" segment.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Clumsily didactic and flat.
"The Whistleblower" has a choppy, fumbling screenplay (by Ms. Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan) that lurches between shrill editorializing and vagueness while sorting through more characters than it can comfortably handle or even readily identify.
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| Original Score: 2/5
Weisz is a dazzling woman, but her beauty is barely noticeable in this role; her character's integrity and her mounting anger grab all the attention.
Rarely has a movie captured the obscene violence of sex trafficking with such unvarnished grubbiness. In the end, though, The Whistleblower is a corporate thriller.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
The Whistleblower is a grisly, authentic, meticulously researched, pulse-quickening political chiller about a hot-button topic that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Our heroine plods doggedly through her frequently stymied investigation, and The Whistleblower follows suit, trudging forward one encumbered step at a time.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
"The Whistleblower" is a one-note affair that offers glimpses of the rich, broad life Bolkovac clearly lives but deifies her into someone inaccessible and unbelievable.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Late-reel scenes of suspense involving the heinously victimized Ukrainians fall somewhere along the line between shocking reportage and standard-issue torture porn.
Although the Canada-Germany co-production from first-time feature director Larysa Kondracki isn't as gripping as it could have been, that's no fault of Weisz's: She gives a bracing, wholly connected performance.
