Civic Duty Reviews
April 10, 2020
The questions Civic Duty raises are better than the movie itself.
May 7, 2019
Civic Duty pulls us into the post-9/11 hysteria that felt ready to pop in America.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
October 16, 2007
mostly suffers from overwriting
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
October 8, 2007
If we can ignore the plot's too-often dips into clich, we just might walk away with a lot on our minds.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
June 22, 2007
Eventually it all boils down to clich, with home invasions by Terry, physical confrontations between Terry and Gabe, a hostage situation, a main character getting gunned down, and all the other standard thriller tropes that might excite the kind of audie
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
May 30, 2007
Terrorism can make you crazy. Or more accurately, U.S. media hype about terrorism can drive you to believe.
May 21, 2007
A flawed but worthwhile examination of paranoia and clashing cultures in the 21st century.
May 7, 2007
Andrew Joiner's clever and layered screenplay just may be one of the best of the year, particularly as it requires thought and may even spark debate.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
May 7, 2007
Krause and his character are the entire movie. Watching him fall apart is fascinating and the ending has a particularly nice, if expected, twist.
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| Original Score: 3/4
May 6, 2007
"Rear Window" updated to post 9-11 corporate downsizing has too many mixed messages to convey the simple fear of a classic thriller.
Original Score: 5/10
May 5, 2007
There's the faint air of a solid cable movie about Civic Duty...but the questions it raises are provocative enough to make it worth seeing.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
May 5, 2007
Until it becomes simply a hostage dilemma, the film maintains an uneasy air of mystery and suspicion.
May 5, 2007
An intense and startling movie for our times. It hits you right between the eyes.
Original Score: 3.5/5
May 5, 2007
A claustrophobic setting and the paranoid concerns of a modern world make Jeff Renfroe's "Civic Duty" an effective psychological thriller.
May 5, 2007
All that flash serves to prop up what's in essence a one-act play, constructed around a political message that's telegraphed from the start.
Original Score: C
May 5, 2007
The film's pace lags toward the end, but its grasp of manufactured fear's dreary pervasiveness never falters.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/6
May 5, 2007
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
May 5, 2007
It does build up considerable suspense and tension; Renfroe has learned well from Hitchcock.
Original Score: 3.5/5
May 4, 2007
The vivid sense of time and place is the best thing about the initially promising, ultimately irritating psychological thriller Civic Duty.
Original Score: 2.5/5
May 4, 2007
As thoughtful as it means to be -- its agenda is outlined by on-the-nose dialogue from its characters -- Civic Duty does little to go beyond this premise.