53
Metascore
7 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineThe Great White Hope persuasively recreates the climate of the time and generally avoids the preachiness for which director Ritt is sometimes known. The love story between Alexander and Jones is touchingly portrayed.
- 63The Globe and Mail (Toronto)The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Director Martin Ritt (Hud) keeps the movie powerful and tense until the ending, which is crudely manipulative. [22 Aug 1998, p.11]
- 60Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasThis big-scale work, directed by Martin Ritt, is of solid craftsmanship but little style. James Earl Jones' Johnson is, however, intensely vital and larger-than-life. [10 Dec 1989, p.2]
- 50Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrProvocative but never challenging.
- 50The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyThe Great White Hope is one of those liberal, well-meaning, fervently uncontroversial works that pretend to tackle contemporary problems by finding analogies at a safe remove in history.
- 50The New YorkerPauline KaelThe New YorkerPauline KaelMartin Ritt's big, noisy production clunks along like a disjointed play; it defeats Jones, and along the way it also inadvertently exposes the clobber-them-with-guilt tactics of the dramatist, Howard Sackler.