Peck, who assayed Lumumba's life in a 1991 documentary, now paces the doomed man's story like the genuine thriller it is.

Full Review | Oct 21, 2002

At the heart of the movie is Ebouaney's performance as Lumumba, every bit as intense as Denzel Washington's as Malcolm X.

Full Review | Nov 16, 2001

Ebouaney is easily the best thing about this import.

Full Review | Nov 9, 2001

The vividness of the figures and situations whets the appetite.

Full Review | Oct 19, 2001

Ebouaney is given the daunting task of carrying a heavy film, and rises to the challenge with Denzel Washington-esque conviction.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 4, 2001

As fluid and intellectually stimulating as the man himself.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 24, 2001

Captures the volatility and chaos of a nation struggling to find its identity and purpose.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2001

Gives a neglected giant of African independence his due.

Full Review | Sep 7, 2001

For better and worse, Peck is no Oliver Stone nor even a Spike Lee, another director who can make a mountain of a film out of a molehill of suspicions.

| Aug 17, 2001

Both compelling and occasionally bewildering.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 17, 2001

Ebouaney, as Lumumba, imbues the man with the fury and calm that complicates Peck's construction of him as a symbol with a legacy.

| Aug 3, 2001

His story is told with admirable crispness and a surprising lack of bias.

Full Review | Aug 3, 2001

Strong, bloody and sad.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 27, 2001

Packed with incident, the film also crackles with danger, simmers with hope.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2001

Complex, powerful, intensely dramatic.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 20, 2001

A biographical drama as fiery as the man whose brief existence it illuminates.

| Original Score: A- | Jul 16, 2001

A taut, well-drawn story.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 12, 2001

The trouble with the film is not canonization but, again, the recurrent defect in pictures about such people. The ideational data are so sketchy that it is as if we were riffling the pages of a complicated book.

Full Review | Jun 27, 2001

The tumultuous events surrounding the rise and fall of the Congo's first prime minister are rendered with passion and complexity.

| Jun 27, 2001

A great film and a great performance.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jun 27, 2001