Critic Reviews

As Bhutto, the thorough and involving documentary on her life conveys, Benazir was a formidable personality all by herself.

Rather than treat its subject as the sort of martyr to democracy that makes good copy in the West, Bhutto digs deeper.

People called the Bhuttos "The Kennedys of Pakistan" and, in a parallel with our losses, the Pakistanis suffered the untimely deaths of Benazir, her father, and her two brothers.

Baughman and O'Hara's documentary spews out so much information in just 111 minutes that the movie would have benefited from a longer run time and tighter focus.

Boasting a rock-solid academic architecture, Bhutto is a film bursting at the seams with gravitas.

Bhutto's story is an epic one, and Hernandez and O'Hara prove up to the task.

Bhutto is smart and thorough on the inflamed history of Pakistan. But as a portrait of the first woman elected head of state in an Islamic nation, it comes closer to hero-worship than to considered biography.

If nothing else, the directors, Duane Baughman and Johnny O'Hara, deserve praise for devoting this kind of attention to a foreign leader and to the internal politics of another country (as opposed to how those politics affect the United States).

Contextualizing the prime minister's rise to power within a larger portrait of a nation under constant internal and external siege, Bhutto conveys a forceful sense of tectonic social and geopolitical shifts, as well as the courageous, heartbreaking personal sacrifices its subject made in service to both her homeland and ideals.

Fast-paced and intelligent documentary.