Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Armand bitter, cruel, realistic. not exactly a manifesto. just a picture. not portrait of a hero. only drawing of a kind of Don Quijote and part of an African country tragedy. a film about basic values. about hope and need of change. about a world. and about a sacrifice out of eulogies. the real honest review in this case is silence. because the reality of Africa remains for many of us - Europeans or Americans - not very clear. shadows, hypotheses, silhouettes, legends - that is the heart of our knowledge about this subject. and the difficulty to understand has cause the present. the globalization is not different by the vision of USA or Belgium about Congo in 1960. the manipulation is stronger. and Africa may be the name of Balkans or South America. so, this film is only skin of real events. a skin like a map after a strange hunting.

sapphire_dragon-1 When it comes to political movies I usually come out feeling empty. They generally take up some moralistic stance and you have a clear good vs bad story line as if it is some sort of Batman movie.But with Lumumba it is the first movie I've seen that showed politics for what it is, and the real issues of trying to rule a country of broken people who have known no other rule but violence. There were no good or bad there were just interests and conflicts of interest. This is the only political movie in my opinion that one can come out of it truly learning something. Especially for anyone with their eye on politics as a career this movie shows you, you cannot rule on what you want for a country, but what the country wants from you.That's why I disagree with a lot of reviews that say everyone comes of bad, I think they come of too idealistic, (the Belgians want the perfect colony, Lumumba wants a perfect Unity Congo, Tshombe wants wealth and riches, America wants the perfect ally against communism, Russia wants the perfect aide for Communism). And the Congolese? They come off used and abused, ( best example in the movie when Général Janssens tells his black troops your government lied to you and it leaves them all in an uproar) they are always being pulled and pushed into supporting this person or another.This movie shows in politics a mistake can cost you dearly and this movie everyone makes mistake after mistake until it escalates and ends up destroying the country. Their intentions might be good (or at least in the characters opinion), but it's everyone's mistakes that lead to the downfall of Congo. I don't think anyone is bad in this film, I just think they want too much from people sick of giving and want to start taking.Overall, it's not just the best political film, it is a great film in general. Acting is fabulous (Eriq Ebouaney as Lumumba was perfect casting I really believe him) script flawless, editing perfect pace, and production value higher than I expected for a central African film. A must watch.

smirkinpigeon This film has both people that enjoy and people that loathe it. However I was struck by the fact at how many non-Africans had seen and commented on this film. Here we see a massive problem arising.Firstly: It is a fact that African history was passed along orally and the only real written history in Africa was created with the advent of missionaries on the continent. To this day there are more books written about African history by non-Africans than there have been of Africans. This means that Africa has seldom, if ever, been presented the way it sees itself. "Lumumba" is a film made by an African filmmaker, shot on the African continent with African actors and yet we see Americans and Europeans commenting on it!The fact is that most of these people have an imagined history of Africa. On user commented that the USA was 'forced' to intervene in Congo, because "Lumumba" called in the USSR to help out his army. What the hell was the USA doing in Africa in the first place? And I answer; they were securing their economic interests. How dare outside powers even allow to excuse their intervention in the African continent, when they are in majority at fault for the situation many African countries find themselves in today.Secondly: There were a couple of comments on the acting and style that this film was made in. Many people don't realize that the entire world does not exclusively copy the Hollywood model. We see different characters in different environments. "Lumumba" shows a different view on an African hero and even though this view is not entirely accurate, what view ever is.So don't watch and judge this film according to your standards, because you most likely have no idea what you are talking about. Rather than being prejudiced towards the film, just let it talk to you and present you with its argument...for a change!

annepeter Congo is a sad country which started with massive disadvantages (King Leopold used it as his private route to personal wealth) and never recovered.The Belgians made little provision for independence, but that is not unusual in Africa and other countries have managed OK despite a bad start. Congo never did.A combination of tribal and ethnic conflicts, underhand colonial behaviour and Cold War politics meant that failure was inevitable. Lumumba was brutally murdered by his own countrymen with America and Belgium cheering from the sidelines.Lumumba never had a chance and he made it worse for himself by delivering an un-programmed and fiercely anti-colonial speech on Independence Day. This is not made too clear in the film - you have to listen really hard to know that that is what was happening. As a result of that unwise speech, he destroyed his relations with the Belgians and gave the Congolese people hopes and expectations that could never be realised.He also made an enemy of the leader of the Katanga region.He was thus regarded by his own people as having reneged on promises after an impossibly short time in Government and then, having been publicly and privately brutalised by Congolese troops, finally murdered by the Congolese leader in Katanga, who ordered two Belgian policemen to dig up and destroy the body. All true and faithfully, if gruesomely, repeated in the film.Everyone comes out badly in the film - which is only right and proper. Belgians for practising apartheid before the word was invented to cover the Boers in SA. How could anyone operate a system where, as a native, you had to be assessed to see if you had developed (`evolved' - shades of Darwin) sufficiently to be licensed to have wine in your house?The Americans come out rather lightly in the film. Maybe it was not known at the time the film was made that the CIA station chief (Devlin, not Carlucci) was sent poisoned toothpaste to introduce into Lumumba's bathroom cabinet (he didn't). By order of Eisenhower.The Congolese come out worst of all, appropriately, since in the long term they are the ones who also suffered (and continue to suffer) the most as a result of not being able to act together irrespective of tribal origin.There is still in reality no country that is Congo. It remains a collection of tribal and ethnic groupings. And therefore weak and poor and ready to be exploited. All this is accurately foreshadowed in this excellent film.A film that is horrific and unsettling, but real. Excellent.