Avis Metacritic

Satirically tart throughout, The Reagan Show is still a schizoid experience. It mostly wants to dissect the Reaganites’ bread and circuses tactics, but also to present a thumbnail history of his presidency. Both are credibly delivered, but they don’t always necessarily mesh.

It’s an approach that works well when the audience enjoys the company of this person who’s become a permanent fixture on their TV. But it’s also one that enrages opposing voters, who can only ever see the maddening fakery.

A documentary composed entirely of vintage source material, letting the era speak for itself and the "Great Communicator" show, oddly, both more and less of himself than intended.

Although this doc is slender, it’s also fascinating, playing into nostalgia and current-day politics in equal measure.

An oblique history of ’80s disarmament laden with revealing off-camera asides, The Reagan Show makes the glossy surface profound. It’s the most crucial and unique doc of the moment, apart from the one that’s unfolding on the news every night.

By letting the past speak for itself, The Reagan Show stays both sober and light on its feet.

The documentary is an insightful portrait of the former American president and the world that he shaped.

As a brisk, sobering reminder of — if you’re inclined to think this way — where it all went wrong with image over meaningful policy in politics, The Reagan Show may feel like the doc of the moment.

Reagan’s legacy remains a live and contentious issue. His name is still routinely invoked, on the left and the right, with reverence and rage. The Reagan Show helps attach a face to the name, but it doesn’t accomplish much more than that.

Rather than reveal a showman, The Reagan Show in the end imitates one.