As usual, his dogmatic politics blind [Lee] from making a coherent movie that both services his message and entertains.
Comment
01/01/00
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
US Box Office: $1,883,628
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
A seriously schizophrenic work made up of two incompatible movies.
01/01/00
A near masterpiece ambiguously balanced between brilliance and incoherence.
01/01/00
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
Whereas Do the Right Thing left audiences stimulated, at the end of Bamboozled we feel exhausted and confused.
01/01/00
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
Even amid the overload of foul imagery, Lee creates scenes so rich in meaning and implication that they achieve a kind of terrible beauty.
01/01/00
Empty-headed and unspeakably undisciplined… [the] question bears asking: Has Spike Lee -- the living, breathing antithesis of subtlety -- gone completely insane?
08/30/02
Bamboozled is a satire with a bite even more vicious than its bark.
01/01/00
It's been a long time since I've seen a movie that made me feel, think, laugh and cry -- often simultaneously.
01/01/00
The most daring Hollywood film of the year.
01/01/00
The film, veering clumsily between satire and drama, often feels like a history lesson.
01/01/00
Large chunks of the film are unnecessary.
01/01/00
Features scenes that are strong, confrontational and flat-out brave enough to salve the frustration of sketchy characters and a narrative that spirals out of control.
01/01/00
The story that Bamboozled tells could hardly be more urgent or timely.
01/01/00
Louder than a bomb -- and just as explosive and messy -- Bamboozled doesn't always hit its mark, but it keeps on firing.
01/01/00
Suffers from overkill and a shortage of fertile ideas.
01/01/00
It's a vintage Lee production: sometimes brilliant, frequently infuriating, never dull, and so jammed with provocative ideas that you're uncertain whether to yell 'Right on!' or throw your popcorn at the screen.
01/01/00
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
Glover is remarkable. His performances are fiery and charismatic, and the internal conflicts he brings to the blackface act are visible both in his acting and dancing performances.
01/01/00
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