Metacritic reviews

What Fat Man and Little Boy tells us is potent and essential. It tells us if history is dominated by individual action, then individual action has meaning -- in history everything is for keeps.

Joffe may remain as variable a filmmaker as ever, but this time, at least, he gives one something really solid to think about.

Certainly worth seeing for its care, authenticity and the central performances, but the suggestions of collective guilt and responsibility, and the pushing of humanity towards the brink are just too coy to ever be really effective.

There is scarcely a performance in Fat Man and Little Boy that is less than commendable. Almost every scene is thoughtfully and tastefully (though not imaginatively) devised. But the characters and shots do not work together to tell a story. Instead, we get a bunch of inconclusive vignettes.

Fat Man seems unsure of which human story to concentrate on.

On one level, the film compels through force of intellect, but ultimately it lacks the cohesive emotional force, the ferocity, to consistently nurture its conviction over two hours.

Newman has no trouble bringing the tough-talking ‘can do’ general to life. The trouble is the scriptwriters have no interest in exploring the man behind the mission. This tends to tilt the dramatic balance toward Oppenheimer. The film falls short here, too, partially because of Schultz’ lackluster performance, but primarily because the script fails to give a clue to what made this man tick.

Despite the considerable creative and technical talents of those involved, Fat Man And Little Boy is slow, stilted, and stultifying.

The movie labors under an enormous handicap: A much better, more intelligent and more exciting film has already been made about this same subject.

Fat Man and Little Boy is so confused, so stunningly ineffective, that General Groves's hawkish statements are more persuasive than the dove-ish apprehensions expressed by the scientists. Even the sight of a scientist dying horribly of radiation poisoning fails to be moving.