43
Metascore
17 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 63Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertBoston GlobeMatthew GilbertAlong with Cusack's marvelously natural performance, True Colors offers a premise deeper than most twentysomething-audience movies. The ethical conflicts between Spader and Cusack are thought-provoking, if simplistic and exaggerated. At the same time, True Colors seems to scream Cultural Statement. It's self-consciously anthemic. [26 Apr 1991, p.74]
- 58Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyThe movie does have the gifted Spader, superb in the thankless role of the Good One. The lightweight Cusack, however, doesn’t have the authority to play an incipient demagogue. His juvenile performance turns True Colors hopelessly monochromatic.
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertTrue Colors requires more than the willing suspension of disbelief; it demands a willful abandonment of incredulity.
- 50Washington PostRita KempleyWashington PostRita KempleyTrue Colors rushes by at a hectic pace, never allowing the story to gain momentum. Despite good performances from the two leads, the film has the feel of a cautionary stampede. While it aspires to lofty heights, it never really goes much beyond the rules of behavior prescribed by the Boy Scout Handbook.
- 50Los Angeles TimesPeter RainerLos Angeles TimesPeter RainerMovies about political corruption generally bog down in moralistic quicksands. Few American films have the courage to take their cynicism to the limit, and True Colors is no exception. This Capra-corny reliance on the ultimate sagacity of The People doesn’t jibe with the film’s fine edge of avarice. Tim is righteousness incarnate, and Spader can’t seem to pull a performance out of all that goodness. He is uncomfortably upstanding in the role. He looks as though he would rather swap roles with Cusack.
- 50Chicago TribuneJohanna SteinmetzChicago TribuneJohanna SteinmetzThe setup is so startlingly unlike the rest of True Colors, so moody and visually ambiguous, that it hits you both with the force of the moment and with regret for what this movie might have been. [05 Apr 1991, p.D]
- 40The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyAs directed by Mr. Ross, True Colors is dreary, humorless, heavy-handed and self-important.
- 40EmpireWilliam ThomasEmpireWilliam ThomasSpader and Cusack go through the motions as political sparring partners in this coming of age drama.
- As with many Hollywood films before it, TRUE COLORS is a film with no discernable reason for existence, apart from the sheer joy of the filmmaking process itself. Far from being its own reward, however, the film is a dull, unreasonable cypher.
- 30Austin ChronicleSteve DavisAustin ChronicleSteve DavisThe don't-get-caught '80s and holier-than-thou '90s do battle in True Colors, a political drama of all-too familiar dimensions. The painstakingly obvious screenplay by Kevin Wade (Working Girl) plays like an eighth-grade civics primer: ethics and morality are good, greed and corruption are bad.