Critical Reaction
The New Yorker singled out Basehart's performance for praise, saying that he "succeeds in conveying the notion that he is indeed sorely beset."
The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther praised the "gripping suspense, absorbing drama and stinging social comment in this film." Crowther said: "Fitly directed by Henry Hathaway in a crisp journalistic style and played to the hilt down to its 'bit' parts, it makes a show of accelerating power." Crowther praised Basehart's "startling and poignant" performance, and said that Douglas "takes the honors as the good-natured cop who finds all his modest resources of intelligence and patience taxed by this queer case." He also praised Da Silva, Moorehead, and the other supporting players for bringing "personality and credibility to this superior American film."
Time Out Film Guide said that this "vertiginous melodrama recounts the event in professional low-key journalistic fashion." Comparing the movie to the film noir Ace in the Hole, Time Out observed that "the emphasis is as much on the reaction of bystanders as on the plight of the would-be suicide."
Read more about this topic: Fourteen Hours
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reaction:
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”
—Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)