Lord Jim (2001)

Critic Reviews

• Variety Staff, Variety

  Brooks, while capturing the spirit of adventure of the novel, only superficially catches the inner emotional and spiritual conflict of its hero.

• Bosley Crowther, New York Times

  Something bewildering has happened in Richard Brooks's making of it, and it misses at being either Conrad or sheer entertainment cinema.

• Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

  Joseph Conrad's elaborately structured fiction poses monstrous problems for film adaptation, and the solution proposed here by Richard Brooks -- plodding literal-mindedness -- doesn't come close to working.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  At best, it only resembles Conrad's 1900 novel.

• , TV Guide's Movie Guide

  This stunningly exotic film of Conrad's classic features O'Toole in the title role.

• , Time Out

  Brooks' adaptation of Conrad's novel is immeasurably better than its reputation.

• Oz, eFilmCritic.com

  Epic in ambition, awful in delivery.

• James Plath, Movie Metropolis

  This 1965 film does a fair job of capturing the spirit and storyline of Lord Jim except for one unfortunate compression. Viewers never see Jim's success in Patusan.

• Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

  A great O'Toole performance can't quite save this ponderous film.

• , Film4

  Pretentious, complex and overlong, O'Toole's one note performance is irritating and too earnest.

Read all 10 critic reviews