Josh Larsen LarsenOnFilm Sep 12, 2024 3.5/4

Will have you clenching whatever is nearby...

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Raquel Stecher The Movie Palace Podcast Aug 22, 2023

I was literally on the edge of my seat... It really did make a huge impact on me... This is an under-the-radar classic.

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David Nusair Reel Film Reviews Mar 11, 2022 3.5/4

...a progressively absorbing and electrifying drama...

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K. Austin Collins Vanity Fair May 11, 2020

Lumet... has a knack for landing a tight, winning premise. Fail Safe, a box office failure in its time that's been considered a classic ever since, is no exception.

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Adam Nayman The Ringer Apr 29, 2020

Fail Safe imagines a no-win situation backing a sturdy, dependable American president in the proverbial corner, where, in a bit of sentimental and masochistically crowd-pleasing fantasy, he manages to do the right thing.

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James Kendrick Q Network Film Desk Feb 11, 2020 3.5/4

doesn't pull any of its punches, and it has the strength of its own convictions to see things through the logical end, horrible though it may be

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Matt Brunson Film Frenzy Feb 9, 2020 4/4

While Dr. Strangelove is admittedly the superior picture in practically every regard, the superb Fail-Safe bests it when it comes to nerve-wracking tension.

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Merl Edelman Los Angeles Free Press Feb 5, 2020

It's a well done television play that somehow got on a large screen where its literate but talky script and excellent acting can't make up for the lack of action or monotony of pace that so bog it down.

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Liz Smith Cosmopolitan Feb 1, 2020

Despite these Illogical drawbacks, Fail Safe is as scary for grown-ups as a child's ghost story is for kids.

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Nathanael Hood The Retro Set Dec 28, 2018 10/10

The true terror behind Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe (1964) isn't that things went wrong, it's that they went right.

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Kim Newman Empire Magazine Oct 21, 2015 4/5

An impressive and disturbing brink-of-doom thriller.

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Bosley Crowther New York Times Oct 21, 2015

It packs a melodramatic wallop that will rattle a lot of chattering teeth.

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Scott Nash Three Movie Buffs Feb 17, 2015 3.5/4

The cold war gets hot in this nuclear disaster film.

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Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Jul 3, 2011 B+

Lumet's tense political drama is riveting, but unfortunately it was released the same year as Kubrick's similarly-themed Dr. Strangelove, which was a satire and more thus more popular

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Variety Staff Variety Jun 29, 2011

It faithfully translates on the screen the power and seething drama of the Eugene Burdick-Harvey Wheeler book.

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Pablo Villaça Cinema em Cena Feb 2, 2009 4/5

Lumet, o mais subestimado dos diretores, mantm a tenso sempre constante, extraindo ainda grandes atuaes de seu elenco e investindo num desfecho impactante e corajoso.

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Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Jul 19, 2007 B+

Tense, chilling and earnest Cold War political thriller.

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