Reds (1981)

Ebert praises the film as a romantic epic with intelligence and wit, centering on the personal relationship between John Reed and Louise Bryant amid historical events. He highlights strong performances by Beatty, Keaton, and Nicholson that make the characters engaging and human.

The film is an engrossing, beautifully filmed and remarkably balanced portrait of a fascinating moment in history. It is cleverly enhanced by the intercutting of real-life documentary interviews and everything a historian could want in a movie.

The critic views Reds as a courageous, coherent, and ambitious film that restores dignity to the big-budget epic genre. He singles out its intelligent engagement with American history and its reminder of the country's original purpose.

The critic praises the film's blend of epic scope with naturalistic acting and its use of real interviews with witnesses, noting how it portrays the curdling of revolutionary ideals. They single out the strong supporting performances, especially Jack Nicholson's as Eugene O'Neill.

The review finds Reds mightily impressive in its creative grasp of the contradictions of epic political cinema and historical representation. It singles out the way the film yokes romance and revolution while using documentary inserts of witnesses alongside a dialectical biopic structure focused on American socialist heritage.

The critic admires Beatty's bold ambition in directing, producing, starring in and co-writing this three-hour biopic of radical journalist John Reed and the Russian Revolution, highlighting the effective mix of personal romance and political history. It notes some conventional biopic elements and overlong stretches that make the narrative feel less timeless.

Canby admires 'Reds' as an ambitious, flamboyant epic that succeeds where similar films fail, dramatizing a remarkable period in American intellectual history with emotional effect. He notes it is not perfect but excites the imagination through its personal rather than ideological approach.

The review finds the film a handsome but unsatisfying epic, praising the witnesses' interviews and some performances like Nicholson's and Stapleton's, but criticizing the leads' ages, the portrayal of characters, and the overly conventional approach.

Kael finds 'Reds' absorbing due to Beatty's dedication but ultimately not very good, as it backs away from its subject and lacks clarity. She singles out Beatty's touching but overly sentimental performance as a saving grace amid the film's struggles with its material.

The review calls the film a courageous but ultimately too ponderous attempt to combine socio-political drama with a love story. It praises the intelligent setup of the political and emotional scenes in the first half but criticizes the lack of overall emotional progression and excessive arguments.