'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close': Post-9/11 film milks viewer emotions with impunity -- 1 1/2 stars

"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" transforms the carnage and unruly grief of Sept. 11, 2001, known to its preteen Upper West Side Manhattan protagonist as "The Worst Day," into an occasion for interborough healing and emotional encounters of the cheapest kind. If actors this good cannot overcome their material, then we can only say: Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock … Max von Sydow, Zoe Caldwell, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, John Goodman… thanks for your honest efforts in the service of a fundamentally dishonest weepie.

Michael Phillips

January 19, 2012