A passionate, harrowing drama about rebellion, atrocity and child soldiering in Africa, Ezra is raw and violent.
Comment
01/30/07
Ezra (2008)
65
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:17
Fresh:11
Rotten:6
Average Rating:6.2/10
Theatrical Release:Feb 15, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: The journey to understanding the truth during wartime often involves an intense passage through a stinging psychic landscape of secrets, lies, greed, and manipulation. Newton Aduaka's emotionally... [More]
Director: Newton Aduaka
Reviews for Ezra
1 - 17 (sorted by critic A-Z)
Top Criticborders on being something immensely powerful, and then, as if shy or ashamed of its promise, flips its wig and falls back on convention.
02/12/08
The tatty budget shows. But there are extraordinary moments in the rebel camp, in which the filmmaking becomes simpler as the psychology grows more complicated, as the boys (and girls) lean on one another and grope their way toward a kind of normalcy.
02/11/08
Top CriticNewton I. Aduaka's comprehensive account of an African nightmare covers a lot of important ground, making this flawed film worth seeing.
02/13/08
Rarely has the gulf between relevance of subject matter and ineptitude of execution been greater than it is in Ezra.
02/20/08
Top CriticEzra is a scorching portrait of an African child who is kidnapped and turned into a soldier for a rebel militia.
02/13/08
Top CriticLacking in subtlety and heavy on moral outrage, Ezra improves as it unfolds.
02/13/08
'Ezra' moves, and is smart enough not to endorse empty enthusiasms or slogans.
02/11/08
Less a catalog of horrors than how a child soldier and his community can pick up the pieces after war, with fictionalized sentimentality, but powerful and passionate
12/23/08
Clear-eyed and without aiming for the emotional jugular, Ezra goes well beyond geography, politics and ethnicity... to explore the psychological toll on young people caught in violent situations not of their making and beyond their understanding.
02/19/08
Despite some strategic errors, director Newton I. Aduaka uses documentary techniques to inform a challenging and disturbing subject.
02/13/08
An intelligent, if raw, work.
02/13/08
Top CriticThe film is awash with good intentions, and the actual atrocities are vividly depicted and chilling... but the film loses its momentum when it attempts to analyze the evils of poverty, anarchy and violence.
02/13/08
Top CriticThe script's flip-flopping between the past and present is so clunky and unfocused that confusion often reigns, thus undermining any clear portrait of its subject.
02/08/08
Only intermittently effective despite its powerful subject matter.
03/07/08
Top CriticSince the movie, however infuriating, is a plea for mercy, the audience is compelled to forgive Ezra its often jittery and confusing overlaps.
02/13/08
Top CriticA taut film detailing the psychological warfare used to control child soldiers who fill the ranks of rebel armies in Africa.
02/14/08
1 - 17 (sorted by critic A-Z)
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