Catch-22

Cynical and bitterly cold... [Mike] Nichols and [Buck] Henry fail to make an anti-capitalist film. They have made their case so strong that it becomes an anti-human film.

Though the vertiginously absurdist logic of the book is hopelessly fractured, some of it does filter through (the mostly superb performances are a great help).

Nichols has done the same thing in "Catch-22" that he did in "The Graduate." He's given us a funny beginning, then switched tones and gone serious.

A mess, occasionally a fascinating one.

Quite simply, the best American film I've seen this year.

The late Alan Arkin enjoyed one of the all-time great "that guy" film careers, such a reliable utility player people forget his leading role in Mike Nichols' adaptation of the Joseph Heller novel.

Cinematography by David Watkins and editing by Sam O'Steen are top class...

Despite countless individual moments that result in humor, or alternatively, biting truth, the experience of watching Catch-22's inherent unevenness wears on the viewer.

Catch-22 suffers from a lack of imagination... The movie needed a good dose of madness. [Full Review in Spanish]

Not so much a cohesive story as a string of only tangentially related vignettes stripped of their original context, Catch-22 fumbles as an adaptation and as a war film in its own right.