Lee's satire on American TV is an intriguing failure.
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01/26/06
Bamboozled (2000)
47
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:95
Fresh:45
Rotten:50
Average Rating:5.4/10
Consensus: Bamboozled is too heavy-handed in its satire and comes across as more messy and overwrought than biting.
Runtime: 2 hrs 18 mins
Genre: Television
Synopsis: Spike Lee turns up the controversy notch once again with BAMBOOZLED, a sizzling satire on race and racism within the modern media world. Harvard-educated writer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans), the... [More]
Starring: Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, Michael Rapaport, Tommy Davidson
Director: Spike Lee
Reviews for Bamboozled
Top CriticExtremely heavy-handed satire from director Spike Lee -- disturbing and thought-provoking but ultimately lacking a sense of focus.
10/30/02
By relaxing and opening up his approach just a little he could have said much more.
12/10/01
Yes, Bamboozled is a picture of genuine importance. Yes, it is also crude, unstable and hazardous.
05/30/01
The mix of comedy and hard-hitting outrage sits uneasily, and two-dimensional characters and performances (Wayans and Rapaport spring to mind, though Pinkett delivers a rigorous integrity) are further impediments as the film increases in hysteria.
04/16/01
Top CriticThe question of where ethnic comedy stops and cruel stereotype begins also gets lost as the cast improv well beyond any given scene's point, and it can all end only with a contrived last act of kidnappings and shoot-outs with the cops.
04/09/01
Top CriticLee, in his least commercial film, shoots for controversy but loses focus.
06/08/09
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03/10/09
This is basically sloppy, all-over-the-map filmmaking with few hints of self-criticism and few genuine laughs.
09/23/08
Spike Lee’s shotgun attack on the treatment of blacks in television and the blurring of image and identity is a brilliant rant that digresses into repetitive sermonizing.
08/07/08
A particularly painful mess, because it begins so well and has such promise.
07/23/07
If Mr. Lee meant to bring back blackface entertainment as a metaphor for the current black performers he finds obnoxious, he has miscalculated.
04/27/07
...where most of us in his audience will lean forward to hear a whisper, we turn away from a shout. Oh, how Bamboozled shouts.
04/06/06
The director's new masterpiece is a summation of nearly everything he has learned as a filmmaker, and about black culture, but he doesn't feel the need to beat the audience over the head for each lesson he's trying to impart.
12/06/05
Lee's basing the movie in satire was a smart move because in it he can push the envelope harder than drama or straight comedy would have allowed.
01/21/04
He hammers his point home until the viewer is emotionally beaten into submission and manipulated into a consenting stance.
05/14/03
Spike Lee has made one of the few films in the year 2000 that is actually about something, and for that he deserves great credit.
01/10/03
A passionate movie bursting with ideas, but it's also a huge mess.
10/11/02
Spike Lee's back, with a vengeance.
09/10/02
Empty-headed and unspeakably undisciplined… [the] question bears asking: Has Spike Lee -- the living, breathing antithesis of subtlety -- gone completely insane?
08/30/02
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