Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
There are no surprises or hitherto untapped resources mined here.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
A girl-power comedy with a bold twist: The timid heroine blossoms in Afghanistan, one of the most female-unfriendly countries on earth.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
By the time Fey is able to say the words, "This is not about you," the comedy owns the feminism it always had. The war scenes are only so-so, but it wins a bigger battle.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Tina Fey is the biggest asset but even she's not sufficient to make it worth more than a marginal recommendation and a suggestion to wait until it shows up on home video.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
If this role isn't remembered as THE signature moment when we came to think of Tina Fey as an award-level dramatic actor as well as an iconic comic force, it's a substantial step in that direction.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
Should a movie about reporting from such a deeply troubled country really be this entertaining?

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
The filmmaking fails to draw this material together in a cohesive way, and the resulting fragmentation feels more like a side effect than a skillful style choice.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
There aren't enough movies in which Tina Fey fires an AK-47 while grinning maniacally.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : NPR
The laughs are scattered, the emotions are muted, and the politics are largely toothless. Yet it still doesn't take much squinting to see the M*A*S*H that might have been.

Name : Nicolas Rapold / Alias : New York Times
The film . rests in a tidiness that's at odds with the messiness of the milieu. And even when we are exposed to glimpses of wartime violence and menace, it's undercut by fuzzy platitudes near the end of the film.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
I found it flawed but fascinating, and a no-fail showcase for Tina Fey's real talents as a serious actress. Best of all, this movie is never boring for a single minute.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
It wobbles in terms of an authentic feel, yet there's no doubt Fey succeeds in her most serious big-screen outing yet.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
That Tina Fey is funny is a given. That she gets inside the tangled mind of a complex woman on a perpetual hot seat is something new.

Name : Molly Eichel / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot isn't a great movie, but it is something rare and important: a woman's story of self-discovery - having nothing to do with her finding a husband - that has gotten room on the big screen.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
An efficient wartime dramedy about middle-aged restlessness and the bubbles we build to distract ourselves from real life.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" is a likable construction that points its star in a new direction without ever quite making a point.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Tina Fey, the film's producer and star, keeps getting better and better in each of those positions. Here she hits a new high mark in both.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The film itself feels uncertain, compromised and tentative. Those are very different qualities than brash, or bracing, or provocative.

Name : Simon Houpt / Alias : Globe and Mail
A war-set comedy-drama as messy and ineffective as an Afghan suicide donkey.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The filmmakers keep to the surface of the bluntly rowdy story while conveying apolitical layers of regret and exasperation, in wanly comic and affectingly melodramatic action alike.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
Writer and actress tilt between insecurity and bravado, employing dry, observational humour tinged with occasional sentimental flashes only outwardly out of character.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Fey has her moments, and so does "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot." But for a performer who still deserves some big-screen respect, her war-movie comedy still feels a little small-screen, a little timid, a little safe.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is entertaining sometimes, but if you're looking for any real insight, you're looking in the wrong place.

Name : Preston Jones / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Fey and the cast try to anchor Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which was shot in New Mexico, a not-entirely convincing double for Afghanistan. Despite everyone's best efforts, the end result is a war in which everyone - and especially the audience - loses.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot doesn't serve [Fey] fully, but this is her best work yet on the feature screen. It's a pleasure to see her come into her own as a movie star while playing a woman who must travel far afield to discover her strength and courage.

Name : Mara Reinstein / Alias : Us Weekly
In her most impressive role to date, Tina Fey plays a journalist in the throes of an identity crisis. Alas, her movie has one too.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
True to its title, as well as its flawed but sympathetic protagonist, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" is more confused than cynical or opportunistic. Its bewilderment is contagious, and ultimately endearing.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A scattered comedy-drama with few laughs and even fewer insights.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
Strange movie. And despite the presence of Tina Fey playing its lead character, a cable-TV reporter named Kim Baker, it's not a funny one.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" is by far Tina Fey's best movie. It makes use of her comic sense, but also of her watchful wariness and underlying wistfulness.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
It's wiser than the confusion its title suggests, and it pushes Fey toward a film career that's as uncompromising, unpredictable and intelligent as her TV work.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Thanks to Fey, as well as the other actors, it has grit. But it doesn't have teeth.

Name : Melissa Anderson / Alias : Village Voice
WTF is essentially Eat Pray Love for embeds, filled with jokes and sight gags that are repeated to ever stonier spectator silence.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa move things along fast enough to keep [the problem aspects] from sinking in too deeply, and star Tina Fey holds the spotlight with aplomb.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
There's a sharp comedy to be made about America's misadventures in Afghanistan. This isn't it.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
The movie plays like a global-political farce made by people who've never left the Upper West Side.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
I was rooting for it so hard that I told myself I liked it even as it missed one mark after another. But in the end it's just shapeless and apolitical.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
The movie never quite shakes off a glib, incurious outsider's perspective that can tilt into outright cluelessness, particularly where some of its more egregious casting choices are concerned.

Name : Leah Pickett / Alias : Chicago Reader
The questions posed about journalistic ethics, personal integrity, and the problematic high of wartime reporting are all worth considering.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
What work better in the movie are mostly smaller moments: the jokes that land, the rapport between the reporters, and all the weirdly ordinary ways people manage to find a new normal, even in the most WTF circumstances.

Name : Will Leitch / Alias : The New Republic
Tina Fey grounds the movie in something real, something urgent and human, and she nearly single-handedly saves the movie from itself. The movie itself isn't particularly serious, but she sure as hell is.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
Some very special aspects of New York City hide in plain sight. A case in point is Seymour Bernstein, the subject of actor Ethan Hawke's assured, meditative debut as a documentary director.

Name : Mike D'Angelo / Alias : AV Club
The film claims to be an introduction, but it's really a long series of conclusions.

Name : Joe Williams / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Hawke's cinematic etude may not unlock all the mysteries of music, but "Seymour: An Introduction" is universal enough to be understood by a bananafish.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
In his calm defense of beauty, craftsmanship, intellectual curiosity and emotional connection as vital human needs, this is one artist who knows he doesn't have to raise his voice to speak volumes.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Whether or not Hawke got any answers to his questions about the purpose of being artist, seeking them under the guidance of a teacher like Bernstein resulted in this work of art.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Ethan Hawke's remarkable documentary puts us in close proximity to 80-something classical pianist Seymour Bernstein, whose funny, touching and vital presence is something you don't want to miss.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Seymour: An Introduction is just that - not too much biography, or history. And one needn't be a music aficionado, or a musician, to appreciate the modest erudition coming from this man.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
It's hard to find much wrong with this film, itself a meditation on art and the practice of craft.

Name : Stephen Farber / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Hawke's film is very well crafted, tightly edited and elegantly photographed. The acute musical selections only add to our appreciation of Seymour's selfless devotion to his art.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
A fondly made portrait . of a gentle philosopher with a wicked wit, a superbly talented pianist who intellectually challenges and charms in equal parts.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
More than a musical offering, it's a study in boundless passion, plus a wellspring of wisdom about art and life from a man who sees no dividing line between the one and the other.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"Seymour: An Introduction" is a compendium of tutorial anecdotes and poetic aphorisms he's collected over the years. Hawke's approach is apostolic, as if he's recording for posterity the sublime wisdom of a philosophical master.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Like a touching master class on living correctly, listening to the charming Bernstein will have you changing keys.

Name : Joe McGovern / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Hawke's gaze is too adoring, but the solitary sight of Bernstein putting together his foldout couch/bed in his one-room apartment is as poignant as his recital of the "Moonlight" Sonata.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
The unfortunate disconnect between great artistry and great commercial success runs throughout history. But Bernstein is a special case because, unlike so many great musicians who fell unwillingly by the wayside, he chose his own path.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
Works both as a celebration of Bernstein, whose spirit is at once gentle and boldly generous, and as a way of exploring creativity and the meaning it can have in our lives.

Name : John Anderson / Alias : Newsday
Unusual, intelligent documentary whose subject is a pleasure to spend time with.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out
Hawke's first documentary is a perfect movie for a gray Sunday afternoon, a gentle and loving tribute to a man . anachronistically convinced that talent is its own reward.

Name : Leba Hertz / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Bernstein in action is a study of what a teacher should be: kind but with a steely resolve. He analyzes the music and figures how to overcome its obstacles.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
The sweetness of the subject's nature and the gentle modulations of his speaking voice are so potent that it would seem not just uncivil but futile to contradict him; yet Hawke is too alert and too inquiring to let the movie subside into worship.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
The movie's real subject is the difficulty - and the critical importance - of bringing into harmony one's personal and artistic lives, of being not only a good artist but a joyful one.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
His playing is beautiful - he was a gifted concert pianist who gave up the stage at 50 to concentrate on teaching and composing. His stories are tremendous. And his voice, clear and strong, is magnetic.

Name : Bruce Ingram / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Coming off of his superb one-two performances for Richard Linklater in Before Midnight and Boyhood, Hawke continues to work at a creative high level. He demonstrates a rapport and openness with his subject that proves exceptionally affecting.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Seymour: An Introduction" gives viewers a soaring, sublime and enduringly meaningful glimpse of a man who is undoubtedly the real thing.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
So effective does it close the distance between you and Mr. Bernstein that afterward you may find yourself scanning the streets, hoping to catch sight of him, as if for an old friend.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
The great joy of the film, whether you know piano or not, is watching Bernstein teach.