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The Butler

Lee Daniels' The Butler

2013

Lee Daniels

Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo, Cuba Gooding Jr. ...

6.6

25,802

Drama Eugene Allen was a White House butler who served eight American Presidents over the course of three decades.

	Author	Review
United States	Lou Lumenick New York Post	"Although director Lee Daniels dials things down a bit here, subtlety is not what he does. That strategy worked for 'Precious' (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Scott Foundas Variety	"There’s no denying, though, that Daniels knows how to push an audience’s buttons, and as crudely obvious as 'The Butler' can be...it’s also genuinely rousing. By the end, it’s hard not to feel moved, if also more than a bit manhandled"	POS
United States	Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter	"Inspiring if not inspired, 'Lee Daniels' The Butler' is a sort of Readers' Digest overview of the 20th century American civil rights movement centered on an ordinary individual with an extraordinary perspective"	NEU
United States	Keith Uhlich Time Out	"This dismantling of a story from within manages to be both enthrallingly meta and movingly sincere. (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"It's watching Cecil open his eyes, in Whitaker's reflective, powerfully understated performance, that fills this flawed film with potency and purpose (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	A. O. Scott The New York Times	"A brilliantly truthful film on a subject that is usually shrouded in wishful thinking, mythmongering and outright denial"	POS
United States	Eric Kohn IndieWire	"'The Butler' carries an authenticity that sustains it through its cloying stretches"	POS
United States	Claudia Puig USA Today	"Authentic emotion competes with manufactured sentiment for the heart of 'Lee Daniels' The Butler' (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune	"'The Butler' tells a lot of different stories, some more effectively than others (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	NEU

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