Metacritic reviews

Morris’s film is less a takedown of its subject, and more a Rorschach test for its viewers. What you’ll see is precisely what you’re primed to see — and that, not Bannon’s ideas themselves, is the point.

American Dharma delivers a suspenseful and upsetting showdown between one man confident of his cause and another mortified by it.

There’s a striking similarity in how American Dharma and "Fahrenheit 11/9" end, with the confident prediction that a revolution is coming, if it is not already here. Moore and Bannon are talking about opposite insurgencies, but they both see a country on the verge of explosion. Moore wants to light a match, and Morris wants to snuff one out.

American Dharma is meant to leave its audience shaken, whatever side they’re on.

The result is a fascinating but also in some ways frustrating film, a game of tag that looks resoundingly cinematic but feels like more of a cable or VOD prospect - not least because it lacks the killer punch, the Bannon stumble or revelation that would make American Dharma newsworthy.

He has the capacity to both enlighten and infuriate simultaneously, making it impossible to take our eyes away from the beautifully shot trainwreck before us. American Dharma is the height of that signature Errol Morris style.

Does this film say anything liberals and conservatives didn’t already know? Probably not. It does offer a candid, civil, and up-close look at a man championing hard-right (some might say racist) ideals, which is more than viewers get from watching CNN-panel screaming matches and Fox News hagiographies.

Morris goes on about a “good Bannon” and a “bad Bannon” at length, flattering him by engaging in a “both sides” mentality that is deeply unhelpful seeing as how Trump supporters and #resistance folks are already going to go into Dharma with their minds made up.

The film feels rather like listening to the arsonist calmly explain why he set the fire as we continue to watch it rage.

What you see in American Dharma isn’t investigative filmmaking — it’s a toothless bromance.