At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Blistering performances.

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.

The first half of "Limbo" has strong character development. Unfortunately only a small number of those characters have any bearing on the remainder of the film. For example, the culture clash between the Alaskans and the tourist industry, was totally gratuitous. There is also an inordinate amount of small talk that leads nowhere. All of this could be forgiven, if once the story kicks into gear, with the mother, daughter, and David Strathairn stranded on a remote island, something happened. Unfortunately the second half in the wild, is tedious and boring. I recommend fast forwarding every time the daughter picks up the diary. All the fine acting, and beautiful scenery, cannot hide the fact that this movie is way too long for such slight material, and the conjectural ending is totally unacceptable. - MERK

"Limbo" continues John Sayles travels around the continent to find distinctive regionalisms and he portrays small town Alaska with a real authentic feel. The audio and video were out of synch for the first 15 minutes so I missed some of a key scene where the singer breaks up with her boyfriend through a song, which was too bad as the cover songs are terrific, from Tom Waits to Richard Thompson's "Dimming of the Day." The acting was excellent, particularly, Vanessa Martinez as a very believable teenager. David Strathairn was both restrained and passionate. I just wasn't completely convinced that Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's character had gone through changes to be at peace with herself. Kris Kristofferson again does a bad guy scarily convincingly.But the surprise "limbo" conclusion ruined the film for me and virtually everyone else in the audience also groaned.(originally written 7/12/1999)

A common question that people ask about movie directors is: which of his/her movies was your favorite? I wish to assert not only that John Sayles is probably the greatest American director alive today, but that "Limbo" was his best movie, tied with "Lone Star".The former tells the stories of several people in a small town in Alaska. We get to see a couple of stories: a corporate executive wants to log out a forest but leave a thin strip of trees so that no one can see it; the factory is closing down because the ocean is all fished out; and finally, Joe Gastineau (David Strathairn), Donna De Angelo (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and Noelle De Angelo (Vanessa Martinez) are trapped in limbo.The best part was the ending. A lot of people thought that the ending made no sense, but I thought that it added to the movie's feeling of the world coming apart. You have to see it. 10/10.

This is certainly a film of two halves. It feels like an upmarket TV movie at first but the acting and camera-work are superior to that aforementioned fare. There is a sense of a community evoked by Sayles's direction as he follows a diverse array of characters and overlaps their problems with the actions of others, while, at the same time, providing enough social commentary on the evils of capitalism that threaten the natural beauty of Alaska. This socio-political commentary is subtle enough because Sayles avoids stereotypes in his portrayal of the inhabitants. The first half feels fragmented at times but the presentation of the blossoming romance between the two main characters provides a seemingly stable counterpoint to the Altmanesque rendering of the tale.However, the film is really a tease. It abandons the first half in favor of the unexpected Lord of the Flies scenario involving the three main characters for the second half. Moreover, it changes mood full circle, using fear and anxiety as the main concerns of the three stranded characters, whose lives hang in the balance, in a state of limbo as it were. I wasn't sure how the first half related to the second, and I still feel uneasy about the total break Sayles employed between both parts. As a result, it feels like two films joined together. I also feel Sayles abandoned any sense of a multi-threaded narrative drive he successfully built into the first part in favor of the unexpected second part. The second part may symbolically allude to the film's title but it's also an abrupt digression of the preceding genre. Why bother with showing the first hour if it wasn't followed up? Why bother showing many characters in the first half, then abandoning their concerns in the later, as if it didn't matter? This is essentially a TV movie for the art-house crowd but one that challenges and frustrates in equal measure.