Part cautionary tale, part Citizen Kane-style biography, the film is the perfect telling of how power corrupts the soul and warps the mind to the point where it becomes cliche.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2020

Director Alexis Bloom reaches back far enough into Ailes's unhappy youth in small-town Ohio to explain both his deep understanding of the heartland and his ruthless abuse of those in his professional orbit.

| Mar 11, 2020

As delivered by actor Peter Gerety, who makes Ailes sound cold and downright reptilian at times, the quotes betray a deep-rooted cynicism that his actions reflected.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 25, 2019

A smart, incisive and sometimes scary look at how we got to this particular place in our history.

| Feb 7, 2019

Anytime you might be in danger of sympathizing with Ailes, the movie provides testimony from one of the women he pressured into having sex with him.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 11, 2019

The Story of Roger Ailes may be straightforward and a bit lacking in stylistic direction, but it's a rather necessary look at one man's life to help understand today's politics.

| Dec 28, 2018

Divide and Conquer has the feel of a documentary on the outside, looking in.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 18, 2018

A shocking, well-researched and richly observant documentary from Alexis Bloom about the climate of lies and systemic sexual abuse that allowed the bad behavior of Fox News chief Roger Ailes to flourish until his victims said Time's Up.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 13, 2018

This blistering new documentary by Alexis Bloom manages to offer a fairly balanced portrait of a man who, at the end of his life was widely demonized.

| Dec 13, 2018

Bloom doesn't sharpen the movie enough, but she has quite the subject with Ailes and enough insight into Fox News mechanics to secure enough disgust with the ways of powerful men and their obsessive devotion to complete moral and ethical corruption.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 12, 2018

Fortunately, there are filmmakers like Alexis Bloom to ... create complex, thoughtful works of investigative journalism like this documentary.

| Dec 10, 2018

A fascinating, unnerving look at power and influence, and how one person can wield those things to a startling degree.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 9, 2018

We're left to deal with what to think of a man who was a great innovator but a terrible person, a real-life Charles Foster Kane.

| Original Score: B | Dec 8, 2018

Divide and Conquer is not content to skim the surface of Ailes's life.

| Dec 8, 2018

It's both a memorial and a cautionary tale about unchecked power and ambition in America.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 7, 2018

... assembles archival footage and interviews - though none with current Fox personalities - to effectively show how Ailes became so good at what he did, and how bad that is for everyone else.

| Dec 7, 2018

A bit manipulative, but Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes is a timely portrait of institutionalized sexual harassment at Fox News.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 7, 2018

Through interviews with women who worked at Fox News and others who knew Ailes, Bloom is really able to capture who he is as a man in Divide and Conquer.

| Dec 7, 2018

It's naive to blame the current cancerous state of American politics on a single carcinogen, but don't let that stop you from pointing fingers at Roger Ailes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 7, 2018

This is the acid test for a good journalistic documentary: No matter how far back it reaches, Divide and Conquer always feels as if it's in the present tense.

| Dec 7, 2018