Free Zone 2005

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: A rambling road movie with noble intentions and an excess of speechifying. Read more

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Gitai has no real interest in who these women are beyond their symbolic resonance. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: A minor movie on a major subject, a drama with an almost unbearable lightness. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: [A] fractious film from thorny filmmaker Amos Gitai. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Much of the dialogue is didactic and pedantic. And when not didactic and pedantic, it's plodding and dull. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Free Zone suffers from too-much-information syndrome, stalling out now and again from its tangled narrative wiring and an overload of emotional freight. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: It's a nice crying jag by Natalie Portman, but there's not much else here to recommend. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Too slight as a metaphor for the larger catastrophe of the Mideast, too preachy to work as an emotionally compelling drama. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Without fail, Gitai's determination to churn everything into metaphoric mud prevails. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: [The] set-up is given a human face by fine performances and a physical journey that's often more interesting than the characters' emotional ones. Read more

Jessica Winter, Village Voice: Per usual, Gitai largely eschews exposition, but his reticence sits awkwardly beside his penchant for saddling his deliberately stereotyped figures with trite, unwieldy speeches and symbolic-ironic biographical data. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: The message is made clear within the first 10 minutes, leaving us with about 80 minutes of thematic repetition. Read more