What emerges may not be quite as cut-and-dried as the movie’s structure sometimes implies.

Washington, subtle, moving and charismatic, anchors the movie...Zwick's movie is solid, honorable and well crafted, but when all the veils have dropped and the mysteries solved, it feels tidier and more melodramatic than it promised.

A carefully conceived, dramatically honorable picture that treats its subject with clarity and intelligence, especially by contemporary standards.

Its central mystery is compelling even though it takes some time before we finally get to the truth. And even though the emotion is pretty thick in the final 15 minutes it still feels earned.