70
Metascore
26 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyBoth a stimulating social satire and, for thinking people, a depressing commentary on the devolution of the American political system.
- 80EmpireAngie ErrigoEmpireAngie ErrigoAn over-strung last act aside, this is funny, brilliant and sickening all at the same time.
- 78Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenThis Tim Robbins-helmed political satire about demogougery makes for an appropriate election-season re-release.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertI like Bob Roberts - I like its audacity, its freedom to say the obvious things about how our political process has been debased - but if it had been only about campaign tactics and techniques, I would have liked it more.
- 75Washington PostRita KempleyWashington PostRita KempleyFilmed in the mock-documentary style pioneered by acknowledged mentor Robert Altman, it does for baby-kissing phonies what This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal poseurs.
- 70Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumRobbins is attempting too much here, but the 70 percent or so that he brings off borders on delightful.
- 70The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyA very funny, sometimes prescient satire of American politics, and of the comparatively small, voting portion of the electorate that makes a Bob Roberts phenomenon possible.
- 70NewsweekDavid AnsenNewsweekDavid AnsenRobbins's gutsy directorial debut isn't seamless art, but so what? After a summer in Hollywood fantasyland, at last we have an American movie that rattles our cage-and pokes a sharp spear into the body politic. Now that's entertainment.
- 67Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThis nose-thumbing mock documentary is so prescient, so astonishingly up-to-the-minute, it creates the eerie effect of having been ripped from tomorrow’s headlines.
- 63Washington PostDesson ThomsonWashington PostDesson ThomsonRobbins, who scripted and directed, creates more than enough on his own. Bob's un-hackneyed character is the prime case in point.