60
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanChong does his time (nine months) and has the last laugh, emerging as a born-again activist-survivor of the culture wars.
- 70The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisTells the depressing, often ridiculous and generally enraging story of how and why Mr. Chong, an extremely laid-back and genial camera presence, ended up doing time in the minimum-security Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, Calif.
- 63New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickHow the feds inadvertently resurrected the performing career of stoner comic Tommy Chong by busting him is the ironic subtext of Josh Gilbert's one-sided documentary a/k/a Tommy Chong.
- 63PremierePremiereGilbert films Chong as if he's a political prisoner like Nelson Mandela, when he's really just an older comic going to jail over a bad business decision.
- 63New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanGilbert blatantly takes Chong's side, so your level of empathy will rise or fall depending on how strongly you connect with his subject's hazy, if enthusiastic, dedication to "the pursuit of righteous happiness."
- 60Film ThreatK.J. DoughtonFilm ThreatK.J. DoughtonLeave the Visine and wrapping papers at home for A/K/A Tommy Chong, a surprisingly clear-eyed, sober account of what it’s liked to be embraced by a culture, while loathed by the Powers That Be.
- 58The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinPerhaps it was inevitable that a movie about the ultimate stoner would be undone by fuzzy execution and lack of ambition.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterFirst-time filmmaker Josh Gilbert, whose skills behind the camera are rudimentary, might be a bit too close to his subject to do disinterested viewers justice; he clearly is a fan and is making no effort to show both sides of the story he reports.
- 50VarietyRobert KoehlerVarietyRobert KoehlerWhile the picture's reporting on government repression of alternative cultural ideas and lifestyles is noteworthy more than anything, it's a blatant promo for Chong's career.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceFollowing Chong to the clink by way of a few well-timed stand-up gigs, this genial doc sprinkles Reagan and Nixon soundbites over its vintage stash of C&C clips for a suitably fuzzy squint at America from '69 to the buzzkill present.