Reception
Policy adviser Charles V. Peña opines that "Ultimately, is about the age-old question, 'Do the ends justify the means?'... In the end, Unthinkable doesn’t answer the question... but does provide plenty of food for thought". Film reviewer Matthew Alford argues that "the aesthetic realism and apparent seriousness of Unthinkable is a mask for the absurdity of its content and reactionary politics" making it more than just a "nightmare scenario" but rather "a white paper from Freddy Krueger". A similar point is raised by DVD columnist Sean Axmaker who calls the film "a clumsy polemic that bounces between the boundaries of stage-play debate and torture porn spectacle".
Critic Rohit Rao recommends the movie with 3 and half stars stating "This brings me to the single most impressive characterization in the entire film. Samuel L. Jackson turns in a powerhouse performance here. He brings his trademark intensity to H's character and somehow makes him brutally direct and mysterious at the same time. After the opening scenes set him up as a loving family man, we are unprepared for the incredible capacity for violence that also resides within him. While many of the characters perceive H as a shackled monster who is doing their bidding, he carries himself as a prisoner of his own abilities. Everybody has a role to play and he accepts his because he can do things that nobody else will even allow themselves to consider"
Read more about this topic: Unthinkable
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)