South of the Border 2009

A.O. Scott, At the Movies: Too much of the movie is about Stone's fawning regard for these powerful men. He's an annoying presence, both on screen and in voiceover, who nearly sabotages his own movie. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: It looks like raw notes and impressions for a future novel. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Stone's film, more an act of boosterism than inquiry, is a tremendous missed opportunity. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: South of the Border offers valuable historical, social and political context, particularly if you aren't an international-news junkie. Read more

Ethan Gilsdorf, Boston Globe: Stone has a crucial, overlooked viewpoint to impart, but as a documentary filmmaker, his content and technique are not terribly engaging. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: What's frustrating about the film is that even though it's clear Stone is making a number of valid and important points about both media manipulation and America's untoward political influence, he's also so obviously biased in his reporting. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The film is rose-colored agitprop, but it catches a current of history. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Like Michael Moore -- a clip of whom appears early in the film -- Stone isn't just his own worst enemy, but his cause's. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: ...engaging enough as polemics go, but unlikely to change many minds. Stone has many directorial gifts, but lightness of touch isn't really one of them. Read more

New York Daily News: Unabashedly one-sided. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Marks an anti-milestone in journalism (about which Stone has plenty of complaints, specifically identifying Fox News and the New York Times). Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Oliver Stone might not be the ideal reporter to send on a truth-seeking mission to South America, but if nobody else wants to do it, we have to take what we can get. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: South of the Border is near worthless as reportage, but it is an endlessly rewarding auteur project. Read more

Jay Weissberg, Variety: A predictable compendium of Fox News clips on one side and peasants glad-handing their leaders on the other, the docu offers little genuine information and no investigative research, adopting a style even more polemical than Stone's earlier docs Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: So one-sided that it nearly validates what the Right says about Hollywood's liberal crusaders. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A personal, maddeningly blinkered travelogue through Latin America that, for all its willful naivete, offers a valuable glimpse of historical and social change. Read more