Reviews / Commentary
“A cool documentary that makes the blood boil… The movie manages, through intense focus on one particular case, to make points that resonate throughout our entire criminal justice system”
- Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan
“This smart, cool-headed film, which has a “Rashomon”-like vision of the case, presents a disturbing picture of courtroom justice”
- New York Times, Stephen Holden
“Brings the interrogation process to life, and offers a searing, clear-headed examination of the problems of coercive interrogation and forced confessions… A marvelous film.”
- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Jury Statement, DOC NYC Festival
“Remarkable… A nonfiction corrective to decades of cop-friendly pop-culture conditioning.”
“A true-crime documentary of invigorating analytical clarity and evenhandedness”
- Slant Magazine, Nick Schager
“Absorbing and provocative” – Variety, Eddie Cockrell
“Powerful and unrelenting… You won’t find a better true crime documentary this year.”
- IndieWire “The Playlist,” Christopher Bell
“More than just an all-angles case study… It indicts a law-enforcement technique that may not benefit the cops, the alleged criminals or the justice system overall.”
“It takes a lot more than raising familiar doubts about police and judicial practices, however, to make a good documentary. Hadaegh and Babcock also construct the story of their film’s case similar to the best of them.”
- IndieWire “Spout,” Christopher Campbell
“Gripping” – Mother Jones, Aaron Ross
“Exceptional” – PopMatters, Cynthia Fuchs
“Outstanding” – Film Journal International, Doris Toumarkine
“Affirms, distressingly, that the American justice system often travels through murky waters.”
- San Francisco Bay Guardian, Cheryl Eddie
“Chilling… beats of a classic procedural, only with an unnerving conclusion that has all too real consequences.”