People are voting emotionally.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The drama between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward carried this film for me until the arena scene. Newman idealizing to the crowd during utter chaos is the most unlikely and disappointing scene I've ever seen in the movies. It all broke down at that point for me. Like actors playing on stage on a sinking cruise ship, the floor fell out beneath them. Successive scenes seemed as in a dream or suddenly a reel from another film was being shown by mistake. Don't waste your time on this travesty of an abortion. You'll wish you had gotten drunk at your local pub instead. There would be better conclusions there about the state of the country and world than you'll come away with from this film.

Not lousy, but rather heavy-handed and didactic play on political morality, allegedly set in the modern age. Paul Newman is an indifferent drifter in New Orleans who finds employment at a local radio station whose broadcasts double strictly as a platform for right-wing political beliefs; soon, the extremists for which Newman works have the city riled up in a hotbed of political tension. Adapting his novel "A Hall of Mirrors", Robert Stone writes dialogue and situations which feel curiously dated or clichéd, like the leftover pickings from a movie made some twenty years prior; as a result, the characters fail to emerge. Newman, at one point in his career, cited this picture as his very best, though he's not very good in it, and neither is co-star Joanne Woodward (working hard at feigning low-class). "WUSA" has an excellent sense of its location, due to Richard Moore's solid cinematography, yet its high-flown aims to be a controversial rabble-rouser drown in the din of over-exaggerated grandstanding. *1/2 from ****

I have to agree with those who praise this film and realize that its not everyone's cup of tea. Although I appreciate the criticisms that some reviewers have leveled, it is wise to keep in mind that it is unfair to criticize a film 30+ years after its release through a contemporary lens. The sense of humor that some have found "lacking" is something that develops with the objectivity of lapsed time. During the late 1960's, many of us found little humor in the assassinations and general insanity that seemed to fill the political landscape. Like the previous reviewer, I, too, have been looking for this film for years and hope to see it on DVD one day soon. I found it to be a powerful piece.

A drifter comes to Louisiana and gets a job as a DJ at a ultra conservative radio station. Despite being a professed liberal Newman decides to just go along with it's right wing rhetoric because he has grown apathetic with things and now just wants to 'blend in'. The idea has a lot of potential, but is never able to take off. Part of the problem is that instead of trying to play it like satire (ala NETWORK) it instead works it with almost pinpoint seriousness. The film seems intent of saturating the viewer with it's gloom and doom message. It becomes such a long and winding stream of social complexities that the viewer, as with the main character, just grows apathetic with it all. It's 'powerful' statements are simply redundant. It is just too engulfed with the politics of it's day to give anything that is broadly insightful. It is easy to see why this is probably Newman's most forgettable film. There is just nothing unique or even slightly diverting about it. It meanders badly and there is absolutely no action. The 'exciting' mob scene at the end looks staged and unconvincing. The film looks to have leanings of a character study, but even they are weak. Newman's angry loner role is simply a less intense version of his HUD character. Woodward as the prostitute with a 'heart of gold' is cliched and dull. Perkins is the only one that comes off as interesting, but it's not enough to save it. This is truly a limp and lifeless picture. It would be amazing if there was ANYONE who would like it.