78
Metascore
6 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanIt's a fluid cinematic essay, rooted in painstakingly assembled evidence, that heightens and cleanses your perceptions.
- 90VarietyScott FoundasVarietyScott FoundasA superb, eye-opening and often absurdly funny deconstruction of the myths and realities of global terrorism that is marked by a balance, broadmindedness and sense of historical perspective so absent from many recent political-themed documentaries.
- 88TV Guide MagazineKen FoxTV Guide MagazineKen FoxIt's intriguing stuff, but Curtis overplays his hand when he underplays the existence of any real threat (Madrid? London? Amman?), proposes that Al Qaeda is a fiction and risks undermining the credibility of an otherwise compelling argument.
- 80Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanThe Power of Nightmares is essentially polemical. As partisan filmmaking it is often brilliant and sometimes hilarious-a superior version of "Syriana" (which also prudently subtracts Israel and the Palestinians from the Middle East equation).
- 75New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanEye-opening political documentary focuses on "the strange world of violence and fear, fantasy and deception, in which we now live."
- 50The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottIt is startling that a three-hour film dealing largely with the history of the Middle East should find no time to mention either the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the role of oil in the region. And it is more than a little unsatisfying to see the complex history of American conservatism reduced to the dreams and schemes of a handful of intellectuals.