Wah-Wah is never less than good but it's also never quite great.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 24, 2006

I admired the movie and was happy to see it but can think of two other films about whites in Africa that do a better job of seeing their roles.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 16, 2006

Watching it is like trying to assemble a puzzle that's missing pieces: You can see the outline of a story, and some shapes fit neatly together, but there are undeniable holes.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 15, 2006

Deftly balancing the end of British colonialism in Africa against a family's painful disintegration, Wah-Wah marks the impressive directing debut of Richard E. Grant.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 2, 2006

The actors give it a spark, and Grant directs his fine cast with sureness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 2, 2006

What is understandably a subject of great fascination to [Grant] soon becomes a crashing bore to us.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 2, 2006

An unforced, engaging and surprisingly incisive account of the disintegration of British rule in Africa.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 2, 2006

Gabriel Byrne gives a great performance as Ralph's troubled father, Harry, and Miranda Richardson and Emily Watson are enjoyable as Harry's wife and American lover.

| Jun 1, 2006

The characters may be based on real people, but they fail to spring to life onscreen. As a result, their histrionics often are laughable, like the over-the-top shenanigans in a Douglas Sirk melodrama.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 26, 2006

What the movie lacks in depth -- it's really little more than a glimpse of this boy and these people in this place at this time -- it makes up for in its well-observed details and sneaky humor.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 25, 2006

The only feeling it successfully provokes is annoyance. By the time it's over, you feel like slapping some sense into the lot of them.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 23, 2006

The movie, in recounting all this personal and national upheaval, seems curiously, almost inappropriately nostalgic rather than subversive, revisionist, or informed.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 19, 2006

Suggests a British colonial version of The Squid And The Whale

| Original Score: B | May 17, 2006

... this is a melodramatic, slow-moving soap opera filled with shrill caricatures.

Full Review | May 16, 2006

Although it's clearly a personal story, Wah-Wah proves as formulaic and meandering as its satirical targets are bloated and obvious.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 13, 2006

The story lacks focus. The senses blur as wives and ex-wives come and go, and Harry regularly falls off the wagon, only to reform the next day.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | May 12, 2006

As a story, Wah-Wah is far from perfect, but its wonderful cast brings it a complexity all too rare today.

| May 12, 2006

Grant captures the essence both of boyhood rites of passage and a particular time and place for which he clearly holds affection, bumps, ruts and all.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2006

Grant opens up his life, not with embarrassment or explanation but with humanity and gratitude. Emotional, melodramatic and sentimental, the film unabashedly wears its heart on its sleeve, and is the better for it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 12, 2006

A lovably eccentric actor, Mr. Grant has created a lovably eccentric dramady.

| Original Score: B+ | May 12, 2006