Metacritic reviews

Dismiss factual inaccuracies liberally sprinkled throughout the film's more than two-hour length and you have an adventure tale of frontier days which for sheer scope, if not dramatic impact, it would be hard to equal.

Absolutely irresistible.

If one can ignore the blatantly fictitious nature of this Hollywood "biography" of the still-controversial George Armstrong Custer, THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON is a wholly entertaining movie, fueled by Raoul Walsh's direction and Errol Flynn's energetic performance.

The liberties which the screen writers have taken with well established and authenticated facts are likely to be a bit trying in spots. But the test of the yarn is not its accuracy, but its speed and excitement. Of these it has plenty.

It may be questionable history (though the film is anything but jingoistic), but it is superb filmmaking, personal and vigorous.

An unusual epic, the first half is a knockabout comedy, but thoroughly entertaining.

Even if historical erroneousness intermittently undermines the film’s outlandish attempts at lionization, They Died with Their Boots On endures as one of the finest Flynn-de Havilland collaborations, providing a grand stage for the duo’s playful, poignant rapport.

As history, it's mostly bunk. Flynn's Custer is a heroic, high-spirited, Indian-respecting dunderhead prone to plunging into battle without thought and winning the day in spite of overwhelming odds (until, of course, the odds catch up with him). Dramatically, however, it's much more interesting.

They Died With Their Boots On is a shameful whitewashing of history. Great battles, though.

Errol Flynn deifies Gen. George Armstrong Custer in a silly though well-directed biopic. [25 May 2001, p.C1]