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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
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.
Rarely has the gulf between relevance of subject matter and ineptitude of execution been greater than it is in Ezra.
Top CriticDespite some strategic errors, director Newton I. Aduaka uses documentary techniques to inform a challenging and disturbing subject.
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
borders on being something immensely powerful, and then, as if shy or ashamed of its promise, flips its wig and falls back on convention.
Only intermittently effective despite its powerful subject matter.
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.
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.
Top CriticAn intelligent, if raw, work.
A taut film detailing the psychological warfare used to control child soldiers who fill the ranks of rebel armies in Africa.
Ezra is a scorching portrait of an African child who is kidnapped and turned into a soldier for a rebel militia.
Top CriticSince the movie, however infuriating, is a plea for mercy, the audience is compelled to forgive Ezra its often jittery and confusing overlaps.
Top Critic'Ezra' moves, and is smart enough not to endorse empty enthusiasms or slogans.
The 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.
Lacking in subtlety and heavy on moral outrage, Ezra improves as it unfolds.
Newton I. Aduaka's comprehensive account of an African nightmare covers a lot of important ground, making this flawed film worth seeing.
A passionate, harrowing drama about rebellion, atrocity and child soldiering in Africa, Ezra is raw and violent.
Top Critic
February 13, 2008:
Critics Consensus: Spiderwick Weaves Gold, Jumper Goes Over the Shark, Say Yes to Maybe
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