ign logo IGN.com | AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | GameSpy | FilePlanet | TeamXbox | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | Direct2Drive

RottenTomatoes.com

RT Bug Squash
Home Movies DVD Celebrities News Critics Photos & Trailers The Vine Forums
Box Office | In Theaters | Opening | Upcoming | Best Of | Certified Fresh | Showtimes
Register for free site & special features! | Log In | What is RT?
                       
MOVIES / ON DVD / THE PRICE OF SUGAR
The Price of Sugar

Rate This Movie

Write a Review
Share This Movie
Add to List
Buy DVD
Buy Poster

Bookmark and Share

The Price of Sugar (2007)

72%
86%
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
72 %
Reviews Counted: 18 Fresh: 13  Rotten:5 Average Rating: 6.6/10
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 90 mins
Theatrical Release: Sep 26, 2007 Limited
Synopsis:
Paul Newman narrates this documentary about the corrupt system surrounding sugar production in the Dominican Republic. Director Bill Haney follows the story of Father Christopher Hartley, a Spanish priest who is determined to help the Haitians who work in slave-like conditions at their... [More]
Paul Newman narrates this documentary about the corrupt system surrounding sugar production in the Dominican Republic. Director Bill Haney follows the story of Father Christopher Hartley, a Spanish priest who is determined to help the Haitians who work in slave-like conditions at their neighboring country's sugar plantations. [Less]

Genre: Education/General Interest

Director: Bill Haney
Screenwriter: Bill Haney, Peter Rhodes
Producer: Bill Haney, Eric Grunebaum
Composer: Claudio Ragazzi

DVD Info

Release:

[DVD Details]

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
T-Meter Critics
 
 
Top Critics
 
 
RT Community
 
 
My Critics
 
 
My Friends
 
 
DVD
 
 
 
1 - 18 (sorted by date)
Text View
Arrange By: Name | Fresh | Rotten | Date | Source
 
 
Ratings Image

Click to read the article

Full Review | Comment
01/03/08 03:15 AM
Anthony Kaufman
Time Out New York
Ratings Image

Price of Sugar is designed to educate, outrage and finally spur viewers to action. That it does so with vibrant visual style and an engaging narrative makes it that rare consciousness-raising film that's not only good for you, but a joy to watch.

Full Review | Comment
11/15/07 02:16 PM
Ann Hornaday
Washington Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

It's been conceived and executed as an instrument of human rights and a tool of shame. But it's the political controversy that's at the heart of this movie -- the contempt that one poor country feels toward its somewhat poorer neighbor.

Full Review | Comment
11/09/07 03:51 PM
Wesley Morris
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

In this compelling documentary, narrated by Paul Newman, Hartley comes off as a man of intense will, and he needs to be.

Full Review | Comment
11/02/07 04:04 PM
Walter V. Addiego
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

... even those naturally sympathetic to the film's position may feel like they're taking their medicine.

Full Review | Comment
10/21/07 08:10 PM
Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat
Ratings Image

Haney doesn't strive for balance, and he doesn't have to; the images speak for themselves.

Full Review | Comment
10/19/07 01:37 PM
Lael Loewenstein
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

The tainted relationship between the dessert on our tables and the suffering of those who produce it gets a horrifying workout in Bill Haney’s multilayered account of Haitian cane cutters in the Dominican Republic.

Full Review | Comment
10/18/07 11:42 AM
Ella Taylor
L.A. Weekly
Ratings Image

Illuminating and deeply distressing.

Full Review | Comment
09/28/07 03:11 PM
Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

[A] no-frills doc, which isn't done any favors by Newman's monotone narration.

Full Review | Comment
09/28/07 03:10 PM
Chad Greene
Boxoffice Magazine
Ratings Image

Uplifting and enraging in equal measures, Bill Haney's The Price of Sugar is a powerful issue-driven documentary that also happens to have one of the most compelling heroes of any movie this year.

Full Review | Comment
09/28/07 03:09 PM
Jim Hemphill
Reel.com
Ratings Image

Like most documentary polemics, it simplifies the issues it confronts and selects facts that bolster its black-and-white, heroes-and-villains view of raw economic power.

| Comment
09/28/07 11:26 AM
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

A portrait of a modern-day saint, a courageous Spanish Catholic priest in the Dominican Republic with a ministry of compassion to poor, enslaved Haitian immigrants. One of the best documentaries of the year.

Full Review | Comment
09/27/07 02:30 PM
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice
Ratings Image

Few will doubt the priest's claims given the Dominican Republic's appalling human-rights record; one only wishes they had been explored in an objective documentary format.

Full Review | Comment
09/27/07 01:56 PM
Maria Garcia
Film Journal International
Ratings Image

Profoundly disturbing.

Full Review | Comment
09/27/07 11:39 AM
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

These Haitian sugar slaves are starved, beaten, disappeared, malnourished, and lacking uncontaminated drinking water, even as other far more privileged foreigners frolic in the waters of the DR's tropical tourist paradise nearby.

Full Review | Comment
09/25/07 07:44 PM
Prairie Miller
WBAI Web Radio
Ratings Image

A vivid, visual experience that will easily convince skeptics that slavery is alive and well.

Full Review | Comment
09/15/07 01:29 PM
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve
Ratings Image

In the end, this is a fevered tale of an outsider, spurred on by his belief in God, who believes his role in life is to save a people, and for a while it seems he is making a difference. What film can top that nowadays?

Full Review | Comment
09/12/07 08:27 PM
Brandon Judell
New York Theatre Wire
Ratings Image

The director's investigation has a clear-sighted persuasiveness, as well as a formidable, complex central figure in the person of Father Christopher Hartley.

Full Review | Comment
09/11/07 05:09 PM
Nick Schager
Slant Magazine
1 - 18 (sorted by date)
Text View
See More Topics...

Related Forums

(2007/docu)-THE PRICE OF SUGAR, narrated by Paul Newman, set to open on Sept. 26th!!!
by: ReelReviewer.com 11/19/07
all

Photos

all

News

Fifteen Documentaries Vie for Oscar Consideration
posted by Jeff Giles November 20, 2007
A little over a week after reporting the names of the dozen films being submitted for Oscar consideration in the...


Critical Consensus: Game Plan Fumbles, Kingdom is Overthrown, Feast Is Semi-Appetizing, Elah Worth a Visit
posted by Alex Vo September 27, 2007
This week at the movies we have parenting quarterbacks (The Game Plan, starring The Rock), FBI agents (The Kingdom,...

Around the Network

• The Price of Sugar at Rotten Tomatoes
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | ModCenter | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive

By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2008, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.