"Almost numbingly safe...'Junk' follows a labyrinthine, economically dense plot with remarkable briskness, efficiency and accessibility. Still, these assets never quite erase the feeling that what we’re watching is a tale we’ve frequently been entertained and alarmed by during the past three decades...The script is refreshingly nonjudgmental...Every major character is allowed to present the viability of his or her viewpoint…Unfortunately, none of them are entirely convincing either."
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“Akhtar spends much of the play briefing the audience on hostile takeovers and insider trading. But the details don’t feel sweaty…‘Junk’ melds a breadth of genres—crime story, tragedy, issue play, cautionary tale—into a fast-moving, broad-ranging social thriller…In Akhtar’s telling, this story is partly about male status and power…But it’s also about race, privilege, competing ideals and, of course, greed. Junk has a cast of 23, and the size of the production helps it cast a wide net of blame.”
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"'Junk’s' driving tempo, cinematic smash-cuts, and clarity of underlying action undoubtedly hold our attention...It’s a credit to Akhtar, Hughes, and Pasquale’s uncompromising Merkin that 'Junk' doesn’t play as a blanket condemnation of Wall Street and a nostalgic eulogy for Main Street...According to the rules it sets out for itself, 'Junk' wins. But as with Merkin’s victory, the taste is more bitter than sweet. The play’s effect on the heart is a pretty desolate one."
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"An ensemble so huge that it would have taken a Tom Stoppard —or a Shakespeare—to portray the individual characters as anything other than stick figures. Mr. Akhtar is talented, but not that talented...Doug Hughes has staged it with knock-’em-flat energy, and the production is as smoothly and propulsively wrought as the hostile-takeover plot is familiar...I esteem Mr. Akhtar for writing a big play about a big subject, but 'Junk' is too slick to be fully satisfying."
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"Akhtar's a caster of spells, which is possibly the only way into the gripping tale he tells here...It is searingly human. Akhtar has repeatedly shown a gift for creating individuals free of the kind of stereotyping that has marked so many accounts of the financial corruptions and collapse of the ’80...He refuses to paint in broad strokes...Accordingly, Hughes has staged the play with infinite detail and a kind of exquisite filigree in the way characters are motivated and defined."
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"A Broadway play that’s accessible, but not illuminating or surprising...Polished but lacks a satisfying punch. A sly little jab at the end isn't the same thing...Doug Hughes directs a crisp and fluid staging...While most characters don’t elude cliches, the acting is uniformly fine...In the end, a loud-ringing message is that the almighty dollar corrupts all. True enough. Then again, we didn’t need 'Junk' to tell us that."
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"Doesn’t exactly illuminate the mysterious process whereby corporate marauders...take over companies...What it does do, in this slickly directed production directed by Hughes, is capture the electric energy that fueled these aggressive acquisitions...None of these secondary characters are as fully developed as the two lead players...For a show with far too many people on stage, 'Junk' is actually in need of more people – maybe one or two of them with a heart."
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"Akhtar is a perceptive writer with an ear for pithy dialogue, so he keeps it engrossing...What he can't do is make us care about these characters, which somewhat limits 'Junk' to the sphere of glossy info-tainment...'Junk' isn't lacking in food for thought, but as drama it's a little dry and unrelentingly talky...The writing is brutal, clever, often witty, and the production sharp as a tack. But many will be left wondering if they really needed this dispiriting recap."
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