68
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisStraight-shooting, hard-hitting and fuming with contempt for the tobacco industry, Addiction Incorporated would be almost too exhausting to watch were it not for the folksy charm of its star witness.
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoAddiction Incorporated delivers a hard kick in the butts to the tobacco industry.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSan Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoThe film's subject, a whistle-blowing research scientist who played a key role in the fight to regulate tobacco, deserves to be celebrated.
- 70Village VoiceMelissa AndersonVillage VoiceMelissa AndersonWith a name that not even the PR team at Smokefree America could dream up, Victor DeNoble emerges as the hero of Charles Evans Jr.'s mostly muscular documentary on the 1990s campaign to expose Big Tobacco.
- 70VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyProducer Charles Evans Jr.'s directorial debut finds an engrossing suspense angle in the involvement of Victor DeNoble, an idealistic scientist-turned-whistleblower whose suppressed corporate research became the bombshell catalyst in that struggle.
- 70NPRMark JenkinsNPRMark JenkinsDeNoble aside, Addiction Incorporated finds most of its heroes in Congress, the White House and federal agencies.
- 67The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe heart of Addiction Incorporated is what happened after DeNoble was canned and later emerged as a key witness in news reports, courtrooms, and Congressional subcommittees. Bound by a non-disclosure agreement, DeNoble operated like a character in a real-life John Grisham thriller.
- 63Slant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierSlant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierThe most dramatic material, such as Victor DeNoble's much-applauded congressional testimony, more or less traffics common knowledge without bothering to provide fresh emotional context.
- 60Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe film's bigger problem is that after a certain point the way in which Evans allows DeNoble to narrate his own story comes to feel self-congratulatory and makes Addiction Incorporated seem a bit more like an advertisement or an endorsement than an investigation or exploration.
- 40So long as we're watching DeNoble recounting the details of his laboratory experiments, Addiction Incorporated remains sufficiently gripping; when Evans is reduced to observing his saintly subject educating high-school students about the dangers of nicotine addiction, it's considerably less so.