Metacritic reviews

It is a colorful tale in an exotic location, with excitingly staged action scenes, exotic desert locale and a richly colorful musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. It is also rich in satirical cynicism about international relations and political expediency. [09 Oct 1991, p.D07]

This opulently romantic celebration of American imperialism certainly presents the contradictions and is one hell of an epic.

The Wind And The Lion is certainly jingoistic to a fault, and its portrayal of the various factions is little above the cartoon level, but thanks to marvelous performances by Keith and Connery, the film works as a maker of myths.

The Wind And The Lion—which was a hit, but not on the order of Milius’ later Conan The Barbarian or Red Dawn—never feels like the product of post-Vietnam America; it just comes from Milius’ imagination, where history and fantasy meet each other halfway.

The film is memorable for its action scenes—from an opening raid that erupts on an eerily quiet day through a Sam Peckinpah-inspired finale—but also for the reflective moments from which those action scenes are born.

Milius once more reveals that his overriding concern is with the formation of myth rather than realism, as he balances the fates of his two legendary figures - Brian Keith's Roosevelt and Sean Connery's kidnapper Raisuli - to dynamic effect.

Generally literate and very commercial period action drama, well written and better directed by John Milius.

An elaborate, expensive‐looking, ludicrously jingoistic historical‐adventure that comes out so firmly in favor of Teddy Roosevelt's “Big Stick” policy, 70 years later, that it could also be a put‐on.

When the actors begin to talk (which they do incessantly), the flat-footed dialogue and the amateurish acting (especially by the secondary characters) take one back to the low-budget buffoonery of Maria Montez and Turhan Bey.