SEE because:

Brian Cranston isn’t just a star giving a grand performance, he’s exciting to watch as he ramps LBJ up from shell-shocked grief to energized commander in chief to driven, borderline-paranoid dealmaker.

If you liked Spielberg’s “Lincoln”, with its self-interested politicians trading favors and making backroom agreements just to pass a bill that history has shown to be morally important, “All the Way” picks up the same theme a century later.

Large-scale, fast-moving political theater is pretty rare to see – so it’s all the more gripping when it’s done well.
Playwright Robert Schenkkan (of Pulitzer-winning “Kentucky Cycle” fame) juggles a lot of characters but never loses sight of the play’s trajectory: Johnson doing whatever he can to pass some form of Civil Rights Act.
Nice, believable work from (Hubert Humphrey) and (MLK) who become these historical personage s without caricaturing them.

Every time Cranston’s LBJ tells a joke or anecdote, the heightened energy in the theater is palpable.
Wanna know how a bunch of old-school Southern democrats fifty years ago morphed into the right-wing, tea party Republicans of today?  It’s all here in red and blue.

SKIP because:

Even at three hours, “All the Way” feels like two acts of a three-act tragedy.  Vietnam is hinted at, as are the seeds of LBJ’s downward trajectory towards the end of his second term, but we miss the fullness of going “all the way” there.  (Then again, “Lincoln’s” final scenes were maudlin and unnecessary; we all know the death part.)

LBJ’s abusive relationship with wife Lady Bird is clearly shown, as is her co-dependency, but we’re not told why she tolerates his meanness, just that she always does.

FINAL CALL: SEE because

This is vibrant, action-packed political drama with a volcanic central performance and a look at recent history that speaks volumes about the partisan battlefield Washington has become today.