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Critics Consensus: The Constant Gardener is a smart, gripping, and suspenseful thriller with rich performances from the leads.
Critic Consensus: The Constant Gardener is a smart, gripping, and suspenseful thriller with rich performances from the leads.
All Critics (190) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (158) | Rotten (32) | DVD (18)
Fernando Meirelles, codirector of City of God, stresses old-fashioned storytelling and takes full advantage of his cast, including Danny Huston.
... Ralph Fiennes gives one of the year's subtlest, yet most exciting, screen performances ...
There is a terrific pulse of energy in this film, a voltage which drives it over two hours.
Fiennes carries Le Carré's spirit with a slow-burning performance that operates on two fronts: As a powerful indictment of third-world abuses by pharmaceutical companies, and as a widower's moving investigation into his shattered relationship.
Rises to a pitch of terror and outrage that leaves one shaken.
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.
Where the film most improves on the book is in its treatment of the main characters. Fiennes and Weisz portray the relationship between Tessa and Justin as touching and believable, something the book fails to do.
The result feels schizophrenic: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold Remedy.
An offensively condescending tourist's eye
A sad, taut, and excellent global mystery.
What it adds up to is a good yarn that uses real political concerns to make itself look beefier than the average Hollywood thriller.
Mr. Fiennes, drawing his lips inward and adding just a slight quaver to his voice, gives his finest performance in almost a decade.
Meirelles directs this taut political thriller with a remarkable control over the material in his hands and fantastic performances from his cast, and the result is a gripping, suspenseful mystery, an engaging love story and an intelligent statement on an important subject.
Super Reviewer
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"Taut political thriller" is a label that's used about a hundred times for every one film that earns it; The Constant Gardener is one worthy of the mantle. And not only is it a political story, it's a human one, too. Next to no unnecessary shots in this one, with strong acting and images that will stay with you. A good director takes on a novel by the famous thriller writer John Le Carré and the result is an excellent movie.
By the end of this film I was really pulling my hair out. I just found it so boring and monotonous despite the best efforts of Fiennes and Weisz. It's a heart breaking story of grief and loss, but the running time dispels any tension and makes me want to switch off. Beautiful cinematography, however.
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