Jakob The Liar Critic Reviews

A markedly better picture than Roberto Benigni's far more sentimental Oscar collector.Read the full review

Deserves a place alongside "Life Is Beautiful" and, yes, even "Schindler's List."Read the full review

Of course, there's still the Williams schmaltz factor.Read the full review

But the best thing about Jakob the Liar is that it's not "Patch Adams at Auschwitz."Read the full review

What it isn't ... is a particularly compelling contribution to the impressive and by now enormous collection of Holocaust movies.Read the full review

I prefer "Life Is Beautiful," which is clearly a fantasy, to Jakob the Liar, which is just as contrived and manipulative but pretends it is not.Read the full review

Alternates between bumbling group antics and strained poignancy...anticipates all laughter and emotion in ways that make it its own worst enemy.Read the full review

The self-congratulatory histrionics of Williams, lower lip trembling as he triumphs over torture in the name of the human spirit, represents a trend in Hollywood to make accessible melodrama out of unspeakable tragedy.Read the full review