Most critics are convicting High Crimes of misdemeanor cliché mongering. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post complains that "there's almost no thriller cliché that goes unissued" in the movie, while Lou Lumenick in the New York Post writes that the movie "feels like the product of a computer program that's assembled every cliché and stereotype of court-martial thrillers. Unfortunately, minus most of the thrills and even a minimal level of plausibility." Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe remarks that the story has "so many possible endings the filmmakers seem to have decided to include them all." and A.O. Scott in the New York Times imagines a conversation between two people leaving the theater after seeing High Crimes going like this: "'So wait a minute, if the guy we thought was the bad guy wasn't the bad guy, then how come the guy we thought was the bad guy did all those things we thought the bad guy would do,' or 'No, that's not right, because if that guy really did the thing he did after the other guy did that other thing, then how come that other guy said. ...' If you figure it out, please let me know. On second thought, don't, but please drop a line to the folks at 20th Century Fox, since I'm sure they're just as baffled as the rest of us."