Johnny Mad Dog 2008

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Basically, talented French director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire has too much style on his hands. His film isn't as amorally grandiose as City of God. Nor does it achieve the hulking tragedy of Gomorrah. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: The movie is harrowing and hard to forget. But just when you think there's no hope, Sauvaire throws in a tearful moment of redemption. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Johnny Mad Dog is an assaultive fiction about Liberian child soldiers. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: The film sees war as a deadener of moral and physical inhibition, a paradoxical state where there are no winners or losers, just the living and the dead. Stunning. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: A fearsome plunge into the world of child soldiers in present-day West Africa. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: Sauvaire, hesitating between a protest picture and a glam-squalid imagist orgy, only succeeds in scattering human rubble across the screen. Read more