Critic Reviews

The devil had taken Reagan to the mountaintop and offered a world of spoils, from peace prizes to popular acclaim and a glamorous place in history. To reject it took more than guts. It took a man who put freedom ahead of his own glory. This is not a biography but the story of a man who faced off against the 20th century's "heart of darkness" and won.

Bannon's film makes good use of historical footage to show how a B-list Hollywood actor made the unlikely ascension to commander-in-chief.

Overreaching in many of its laudatory appraisals, the film is mostly GOP-boosting rhetoric in the guise of a dull History Channel special.

A cinematic canonization that presents the 40th president as the 20th century's godsend.

What this Reagan movie really needed was . . . more Reagan. None of his admirers have his charisma, and none of the footage here is surprising. Fox News could easily produce a better film.

Archival material -- especially rare B&W Soviet footage -- is a knockout, though the assembly of talking heads, nearly all Reagan loyalists, is predictable and uninspired.

This is for the pre-converted, certainly not the left, or even those who consider themselves detached observers.

Were the film's tone not so hysterical it might be provocative; as it is, insights and insults are inextricably intertwined.

So over the top that it often plays like a parody.