Arestrup and Dussollier are mesmerizing as they attack and parry, argue and counterargue. They reminisce about their lives before the war and wax poetic about their families - then engage in battle again.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 12, 2014

A little supporting personality could have made the proceedings feel less like a smartly staged character study and more like a wartime drama.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 4, 2014

Although we know what happens, Diplomacy keeps up the suspense and pulls off surprises as Choltitz's decision reaches its inevitable ending.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 26, 2014

Its minor thrills come not from not knowing what will happen, but from watching the cagey choreography of two acrobatic minds.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 20, 2014

The result is intriguing and intelligent, but ultimately uninspired.

| Nov 16, 2014

A highly civilised piece of work.

| Nov 13, 2014

If you've had your fill of tony World War II dramas, this probably won't renew your interest in the genre, but the leads are fine as usual and Schlndorff succeeds in making the stagebound material feel reasonably cinematic.

| Nov 13, 2014

Tere's a fair amount of talking in circles, even with the film's brisk running time. The dialogue also reflects the material's stage origins in ways that don't always translate well.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 7, 2014

It's quite a triumph for Diplomacy in general and Schlndorff's pinpoint filmmaking in particular to involve us as thoroughly as it does in the ebb and flow of their compelling conversation.

| Nov 6, 2014

Well-orchestrated and superbly acted. Though we know the outcome, the fate of Paris seems anything but guaranteed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2014

The principal suspense in this fascinating movie is generated by the polite, and then not so polite, ferocity of the arguments between the two men.

| Oct 20, 2014

Based on the French play by Cyril Gely and directed by Volker Schlndorff's Diplomacy is so soundly engineered and acted that it doesn't seem stagey at all.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 16, 2014

The film isn't really fooling anyone into feeling doom-laden suspense (Paris, after all, is still standing), but the principal performers sell the momentousness of the drama.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 16, 2014

The film's a little too flashy and theatrical, with too-neat ironies. As a duel between acting talents, though, this is first-rate.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 15, 2014

Benefits greatly from the razor-sharp, theater-honed skills of two formidable French actors, Niels Arestrup and Andr Dussollier, who created the roles on stage.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 15, 2014

Has enough visual panache to compensate for the static, conversational nature of the work.

| Original Score: B- | Oct 15, 2014

What Gly lacks in historical fidelity he gains in dramatic interplay between men who held power very differently.

| Oct 14, 2014

The value of "Diplomacy" is that it produces at least as much unsettlement as relief, compelling the viewer to remain haunted by nightmarish thoughts of what might have happened.

| Oct 14, 2014

Diplomacy's origins as a play (written by Cyril Gely and starring the same actors) are always evident.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 14, 2014

To be sure, we are in that authorial fantasy by which historical figures become shrewder, sharper and wittier than they surely were in life... But when the actors and the dialogue are this good, one scarcely objects.

| Oct 10, 2014