Camp X-Ray 2014

Bruce Ingram, Chicago Sun-Times: It's invigorated, somewhat, by strong central performances from actors on opposite sides of a locked steel door. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: 'Camp X-Ray" already feels like a throwback to an earlier era, when Hollywood cared about what was going on at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected Islamist terrorists. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: An obvious but strongly humanist drama from first-time feature maker Peter Sattler. Read more

Rob Nelson, Variety: First-time writer-director Peter Sattler's pic means very well, but strains credibility and ethics alike. Read more

Vadim Rizov, AV Club: There's something insulting about this thoroughly well-intentioned film ... Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: On another movie, the high-corn finale might have worked; here, it just feels patently false. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Writer-director Peter Sattler... grounds his story in the cold operational detail of Gitmo, showing how the soldiers there administer the legal limbo of indefinite detention and insulate themselves from the cruelty and injustice of what they're doing. Read more

Joe McGovern, Entertainment Weekly: The movie becomes a series of histrionic attempts to be, as Stewart's character says with a pout, ''Just not as black and white as they said it was gonna be.'' Read more

William Goss, Film.com: If nothing else, it suggests that Kristen Stewart may escape the prison of Twilight Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: It helps if you think of "Camp X-Ray" and the prison face-off between Stewart and Maadi as a cautionary conversation unfolding more like a theater production than a movie. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The flat, emotionless mask that Cole is supposed to keep in place plays exactly to Stewart's own, very guarded screen persona. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Stewart seems out to prove her potential with this solemn drama. For the most part, she succeeds. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: Despite the movie's gripping performances and the verisimilitude of many elements, I simply don't believe the story. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: Camp X-Ray raises quite a few fascinating questions about power, sexism, and war, yet fails to explore them in any real depth. More troubling still, it's a character study that does little in the way of character development. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Has a great idea behind it - a young female soldier assigned guard duty at Guantanamo Bay forms a kinship with one of the incarcerated Muslims - but first-time writer-director Peter Sattler doesn't go anywhere interesting with that notion. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Do these performances outweigh a scenario that feels written by a politically outraged 12-year-old? Read more

Brian Truitt, USA Today: Sattler digs into both sides of those cell doors, exploring the combative side of soldiers having to "babysit" detainees while those inside the prison walls are driven mad by their lack of sleep and unfortunate conditions. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: Stewart plays Cole with her million-dollar hair bunned up, her movie-star litheness layered beneath formless fatigues, her eyes raw, and the dusting of freckles on her cheekbones exposed. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: As Cole, Kristen Stewart is a good fit. In some of her more notable past roles, her tense, clipped delivery has read like disassociation from the material. But here, we get it. Read more