Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

sapphire_dragon-1 When it comes to political movies I usually come out feeling empty. They generally take up some moralistic stance and you have a clear good vs bad story line as if it is some sort of Batman movie.But with Lumumba it is the first movie I've seen that showed politics for what it is, and the real issues of trying to rule a country of broken people who have known no other rule but violence. There were no good or bad there were just interests and conflicts of interest. This is the only political movie in my opinion that one can come out of it truly learning something. Especially for anyone with their eye on politics as a career this movie shows you, you cannot rule on what you want for a country, but what the country wants from you.That's why I disagree with a lot of reviews that say everyone comes of bad, I think they come of too idealistic, (the Belgians want the perfect colony, Lumumba wants a perfect Unity Congo, Tshombe wants wealth and riches, America wants the perfect ally against communism, Russia wants the perfect aide for Communism). And the Congolese? They come off used and abused, ( best example in the movie when Général Janssens tells his black troops your government lied to you and it leaves them all in an uproar) they are always being pulled and pushed into supporting this person or another.This movie shows in politics a mistake can cost you dearly and this movie everyone makes mistake after mistake until it escalates and ends up destroying the country. Their intentions might be good (or at least in the characters opinion), but it's everyone's mistakes that lead to the downfall of Congo. I don't think anyone is bad in this film, I just think they want too much from people sick of giving and want to start taking.Overall, it's not just the best political film, it is a great film in general. Acting is fabulous (Eriq Ebouaney as Lumumba was perfect casting I really believe him) script flawless, editing perfect pace, and production value higher than I expected for a central African film. A must watch.

senortuffy This is a pretty good film about the rise and fall of Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of what was formerly the Belgian Congo. It was done on a small budget and lacks certain production values but it was well presented and the acting sufficient to tell the story.Many people have complained in other reviews about the angle from which it was directed and whether the story is accurate or not. I'm not an expert on Congolese history, so cannot offer an opinion on that score, but it's obviously a complex situation and not easily covered in a two hour film.The Belgian Congo was an important battleground in the Cold War right around the time of the transition to the Kennedy administration, and no doubt the United States had a hand in Lumumba's execution. He was, after all, a nationalist outside of the American sphere of control and was flirting with the Russians (much as Fidel Castro was doing across the Atlantic in Cuba).But there is much more to the story. Prime Minister Lumumba wanted to unite the Congo and control it with a central government, but there were regional powers and economic forces working against him. I suppose anyone trying to do what Lumumba was aiming to do would have been at risk at that time and place. Even now, over four decades later, with Mobutu Seko gone, there is much civil strife and no one has united the country.Raoul Peck, a Haitian who has lived in Zaire, does a fair job of directing this story. He presents Lumumba in a heroic light but also shows the flaws in his leadership. His life isn't overly dramatized like what Spike Lee did to Malcolm X, and, thankfully, he didn't take the Oliver Stone approach and make it into a big international conspiracy. It's history lite, but seeing as how this is a subject not covered very often, it's valuable nonetheless.

John Seal Dubbed beyond comprehension, the HBO version of Lumumba is a disastrous rendering of what looks like what was once a decent film. Some scenes simply don't make sense in English and the actors bring zero energy to their voice reading. Add in the self-censorship involving CIA operative Frank Carlucci, and you have a film stripped of both its drama and its power. Here's hoping the subtitled version gets to American television screens at some point.

debitspread Wow. What a fabulous film. The artists are to be congratulated and thanked for making this whole era come to life.Should you go to this movie? Well, my wife didn't want to go because she guessed that it would be upsetting. She was correct: It IS deeply upsetting to see cruelty, treachery, panic, wobbly social institutions, etc.On the other hand, there's nothing like a strong dose of the truth. I don't know enough Congolese history to have an opinion on the accuracy of this tale, but the movie certainly had an emotional truth to it. In fact, it reminded me of something Meryl Streep once said. She mentioned that the purpose of a movie is to tell you what it felt like to be there -- wherever "there" might happen to be. By that standard, this movie succeeded. The film showed me -- a white guy from an American suburb -- what it means to have guts and commitment to high ideals during the most chaotic of times.If that sounds intriguing to you, go see "Lumumba"!