आलोचक समीक्षाएं

Of all the feature films and documentaries to emerge since 9/11, few have been as bold, perceptive or as downright chilling as this thriller.

What goes on inside the mind of a terrorist who is willing to blow himself for the cause? The War Within is one of the few films that attempts to deal with this subject in a nonexploitative way.

The War Within plays effectively off our voyeurism, yet it has such a cloistered, American-eyed view of the nightmare of terrorism that I kept searching for the profound explanation beneath its piecemeal ones.

The War Within succeeds only as a thriller with some wartime overtones, rather than as a character study that thrills.

Sometimes too pat and sometimes ragged with omissions and confusions, but it's still a fascinating look outside of that familiar world and into a harsher one.

Chillingly realistic but deeply repellent, The War Within is a film that should not have been made.

Despite an admirable effort to explore topical concerns, both director and actor are obviously overwhelmed by the immensity of the subject matter.

Does a fairly good job of laying out the basic political motives behind Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, as a drama, it has its narrative peak in the middle and quickly runs out of story afterward.

Shot in DV by Lisa Rinzler, Joseph Castelo's modest drama struggles for verisimilitude, but it wears clichés like concrete boots, down to the cycle-of-intolerance-and-violence message that we hear every day on NPR.

An honorable but failed attempt to dramatize the dynamics that propel a basically good man to become a suicide bomber, The War Within contains provocative points inside a dull package.