While the shooting of JFK is the dark shadow of this movie, what unfolds on screen is less about the 35th president than the man who replaced him.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 1, 2018

[Woody] Harrelson gives an impressionistic performance. He doesn't look much like LBJ, even after the make-up, nor can he bring his voice to the same low register, but he understands the coyote cunning of the man.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 1, 2018

Woody Harrelson in the title role has enough spice to keep the viewer alert and attentive.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 6, 2017

The best thing the director has going for him is his star, Woody Harrelson.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 3, 2017

It's as workmanlike as Johnson was as a politician; but as a primer on one of history's less flashy leaders, it's a worthwhile watch - mostly for fellow Texan Woody Harrelson's committed performance behind those prosthetic ears.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 3, 2017

Captures a tumultuous political era and one of its most profanely colorful leaders with a good deal of insight and emotional torque.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 3, 2017

Harrelson gives it all he has as the gruff, emotionally needy and politically savvy successor to the matinee-idol commander-in-chief, John F. Kennedy.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 3, 2017

Here, Reiner's more like an efficient ride operator, unconcerned about the clankiness of the machinery but certain you'll enjoy the stuff that's supposed to work.

| Nov 3, 2017

It's a well-calibrated performance, with Harrelson convincingly conveying how Lyndon Johnson felt the weight of the world on his shoulders and took on that challenge in mostly admirable ways.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 2, 2017

Rob Reiner's film fails to do justice to both the man and the fraught times he so fundamentally influenced.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 2, 2017

An attentively presented but oddly unrewarding viewing experience despite a persuasive Woody Harrelson lead performance as Lyndon Baines Johnson.

| Nov 2, 2017

This is definitely the wrong Commander In Chief to portray as an overgrown grumpy toddler, but that's how Joey Hartstone's simplistic script often characterizes him.

| Original Score: C | Nov 2, 2017

[LBJ] adds little to the cinematic understanding of Johnson's presidency already supplied.

| Nov 2, 2017

Harrelson and Reiner have succeeded in creating the rare mature Hollywood political movie, exploring those qualities that make an effective president in his own era and those that come to define his legacy over decades.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 2, 2017

Feels like an installment of a 1980s miniseries that's been preserved in amber rather than a complete and fulfilling production.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 2, 2017

"LBJ" is a frustratingly underdeveloped vehicle for Mr. Harrelson's talents as well as an unfortunate missed opportunity.

| Nov 2, 2017

It's not that Johnson isn't a compelling dramatic figure, but [Rob] Reiner's film is too broad and simplistic to capture why that is.

| Nov 2, 2017

No wonder the movie feels something like a retread: It gets you there, but the ride is neither nowhere as smooth, nor nearly as compelling

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 2, 2017

What you get is a straightfoward, frustratingly mild portrait of a big man who, in "Hamilton"-speak, wanted to be in the room where it happened, but who really just wanted to be loved and respected.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 2, 2017

"LBJ" is a good story told badly, but a good story all the same.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 2, 2017