Critic Reviews

• Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  While it's satisfying to see fat cats tamed by science and an enraged public, the movie misses the opportunity to sustain the pressure.

• Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  This straightforward documentary by Charles Evans Jr. is must viewing for anyone interested in public health and corporate ethics.

• Loren King, Boston Globe

  Once it finds its footing in old-fashioned journalism, the film packs a wallop.

• Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  "Addiction Incorporated" follows tobacco's journey downhill from respectability.

• Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

  Rather than relying only on archival footage and a parade of talking heads, Evans mixes it up with reenactments of episodes in the past. It's subtly unobtrusive and effective.

• David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer

  While its thoroughness is laudable, its pacing is deadly. And the events and attitudes depicted already have become curiously passe in less than a decade.

• Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl

  Addiction, Incorporated feels more like a well-made educational documentary rather than something you'd care to see in a theater.

• Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press

  Anybody who's remotely interested in this topic already knows everything "Addiction Incorporated" has to say.

• Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix

  Much of the first half of Charles Evans Jr.'s muckraking documentary is annoyingly gimmicky...

• Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews

  ...a film that should be shown in high schools and colleges. Victor DeNoble is a great role model with something important to say. I hope people listen.

• Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

  The one anti-smoking doc to see if you're only having one.

• Fr. Chris Carpenter, Movie Dearest

  Charles Evans, Jr. makes an impressive directorial debut... While entertainingly constructed, (the film) suffers at times from a too-comical approach.

• Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics

  The fascinating first hand story of the scientist who exposed tobacco companies as drug pushers.

• Scott Tobias, AV Club

  DeNoble is an ideal subject, a riveting, passionate storyteller who witnessed industry shenanigans first-hand a full decade before they were exposed to the public.

• Doris Toumarkine, Film Journal International

  This handsomely produced, richly detailed documentary about how the tobacco industry strove to hook America on nicotine and how the research scientist in charge upended this mission as whistleblower is as entertaining as it is informative.

Read all 15 critic reviews