In My Country 2004

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: Ostensibly about the aftermath of apartheid, but the pain of a people serves only as a backdrop for the most contrived of love stories. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A stirring, large-souled movie about an event that was both an exposure of horror and a celebration of forgiveness. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: See In My Country anyway, because it's doubtful we'll get another movie too soon that raises the issue of vengeance versus forgiveness -- and endorses the latter in the name of a nation's spiritual well-being. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Noble intentions, some fantastic photography some good performances but I have to give it thumbs down because of all the melodrama. Read more

Bob Townsend, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Is it a docudrama about South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings? Or is it love story? The problem with In My Country is that it tries to be both. Read more

AV Club: Read more

Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic: It shows what can go wrong when a good-intentioned filmmaker mixes historical tragedy with Hollywood banality. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The film, an international co-production about the aftermath of South African apartheid, has won peace awards and comes with a thumbs up from Nelson Mandela himself, none of which make its contrivances easier to swallow. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Unfortunately more didactic than dramatic, and although surprises emerge right up to the end, there's precious little suspense, mystery or uncertainty. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: Watching it is like drinking a glass of Alka-Seltzer before the tablet is dissolved. Afterward, you're glad you drank it -- it wasn't that hard to swallow -- but you would've preferred a nice chardonnay. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Just when you thought Hotel Rwanda had rendered obsolete the sort of neocolonial uplift that investigates black trauma through a white person's eyes, along comes In My Country. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Stagy, declamatory and vulgarized by a need to hype inherently dramatic material, In My Country is, like so many movies about the Third World made for Western audiences. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: There is no historical moment so epochal that it cannot be reduced to schlock entertainment in the right hands. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: Has enough raw, real content to successfully upset viewers. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: An academic dis-cussion punctuated by shots of magnificent countryside harboring unspeakable grief. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: John Boorman's high-minded but hopelessly wooden film makes the fatal mistake of turning characters into mouthpieces. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Failing to get beyond trite Hollywood romantic conventions, sermonizing caricatures and 'I was just following orders' explanations does a great disservice to history. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There is something not quite right about the film itself. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The picture hums with a falsely optimistic Kumbaya vibe, such that its mildness is almost an affront. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: While applauding Boorman's efforts, it's hard to applaud his movie. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: Black, white and clunky. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Need[s] to be seen, as essential history and as demonstration of a form of social reckoning where compassion triumphs over passion, and the olive branch over the gun. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: Because Ann Peacock's pedestrian script couldn't make any movie come to life, our interest in these two characters is nil. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: The combo of cultural cringe and a schematic, didactic screenplay strangles the human emotion. Read more

Jessica Winter, Village Voice: Boorman's bathetic tourism is unconscionable for a subject of this magnitude. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: What do you say about a dramatically woeful movie whose heart and politics are in the right place? Well, you sigh as you turn your thumb downward. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A series of brief, appallingly simplistic vignettes that, rather than conveying the depth and complexity of South Africa's history and culture, distill it to the point of distortion. Read more