The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
Green Book
Widows
The Walking Dead
Log in with Facebook
OR
By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies, and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango.
Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password.
We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your account. Just leave us a message here and we will work on getting you verified.
Please reference “Error Code 2121” when contacting customer service.
Critics Consensus: A Private War honors its real-life subject with a sober appraisal of the sacrifices required of journalists on the front lines - and career-best work by Rosamund Pike.
Critic Consensus: A Private War honors its real-life subject with a sober appraisal of the sacrifices required of journalists on the front lines - and career-best work by Rosamund Pike.
All Critics (122) | Top Critics (27) | Fresh (110) | Rotten (12)
I admired A Private War for its tough, forthright, pro-journalist attitude.
It's a powerful but clear-eyed acknowledgment of the importance of journalism.
While it occasionally pulls away from Colvin to let the nightmarish inhumanity of war provide power and feeling, it all too often relies on juiced-up expressions of humanist heroism.
"A Private War" doesn't ask you to understand the politics of war, only the human side. And it shows the toll war takes on people's souls, most of which it never gives back.
An intelligent and sophisticated biopic with a tour-de-force performance from Pike.
Despite the undeniably extraordinary feats that Colvin achieved in life and on the edge of death, A Private War is a hagiography that reduces a complicated woman down to trauma, booze, and typing.
Pike certainly looks and acts the part, even if the depiction of the journalist's trade tends towards the cliched.
Poor, gifted Rosamund Pike is persuaded to play the American-born Sunday Times journo at full throttle, when half-throttle would be a nice occasional variant.
The film is an inspiring tribute to a significant figure in journalism.
Heineman is far better off letting Pike's unforced charisma and sense of purpose carry the day.
Matthew Heineman is a documentary filmmaker and his A Private War is a sturdy chronicle of Colvin's fearless life of speaking truth to power, only to be admired because of the unthinkable risks she herself took in order to do so.
A better encapsulation of the dangers of speaking up, and the equally pressing need to, could not be imagined.
Pike is great, but the movie never coalesces around a coherent idea of who Colvin really was outside of vague ponderings about her wanting to do good and something about trauma. One feels that the real Colvin deserved something better.
Super Reviewer
A PRIVATE WAR (3 1/2 Stars) It's nice to see a fierce woman at the center of the familiar journalist in a war zone story, and Rosamund Pike's unsparingly aggressive performance as Marie Colvin, a BBC correspondent who lost an eye and wore a patch, makes her a "Fifth Estate Pirate" for the ages. This true portrayal of a woman whose outrage led her into deadly conflicts may seem like a lot of typing at computer screens, smoking, and fighting with editors to let her get into increasingly dangerous situations, but this urgently directed film wants to shake us out of our selfie-culture complacency and ask ourselves if we would be anywhere as ballsy and brave as Marie. Jamie Dornan surprises with an earthy, edgy performance as her photographer, reminding us that he has more than 50 shades to him. It's an imperfect film, episodic but impactful, but Pike is the real show, literally and figuratively exposing us to a woman whose imperfections were matched by her passion and heroism.
There are no approved quotes yet for this movie.
View All