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MOVIES / ON DVD / THE CAMDEN 28
The Camden 28

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The Camden 28 (2007)

88%
78%
100%
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88 %
Reviews Counted: 25 Fresh: 22  Rotten:3 Average Rating: 7.2/10
 
Consensus: The Camden 28 is both powerful and timely. Despite the fact the events chronicled in The Camden 28 occurred 30 years ago, this poignant and compassionate doc about Vietnam protesters is both powerful and timely. more
 
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 83 mins
Theatrical Release: Jul 27, 2007 Limited
Synopsis:
Anthony Giacchino's suspenseful, tautly constructed documentary THE CAMDEN 28 recounts one of the 20th Century's most fascinating trials. In 1971, a group of Camden, New Jersey, residents who opposed the war in Vietnam, decided to take action. The group, consisting of many religious... [More]
Anthony Giacchino's suspenseful, tautly constructed documentary THE CAMDEN 28 recounts one of the 20th Century's most fascinating trials. In 1971, a group of Camden, New Jersey, residents who opposed the war in Vietnam, decided to take action. The group, consisting of many religious figures in the local community--including four Catholic priests--became known as the "Catholic left." Their target: the local draft board office, where they intended to destroy as much vital paperwork as possible. But during their assault, authorities barged in and stopped them in their tracks. Clearly, they had been set up. The ensuing trial sparked a passionate court room debate, where justice and the law didn't seem to connect. With THE CAMDEN 28, first-time feature filmmaker Giacchino takes a refreshing approach to his material, allowing the relevant players in the trial to tell their own story. The result is an infinitely more intimate, immediate, and compelling work. While Giacchino conceived of and shot most of his film before the Iraq War commenced, it is nonetheless an eerie reminder that one needn't look too far into the past to predict the future. [Less]

Genre: Dramas

Director: Anthony Giacchino

DVD Info

Release:

Sep 18, 2007

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Region 1
  • Keep Case
  • Full Frame - 1.33

Audio:

  • Stereo - English

Additional Release Material:

  • Audio Commentary
  • Bonus Footage

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
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Director Anthony Giacchino doesn't always relate the tale in the clearest fashion, but his sometimes overly emotional approach... doesn't detract from its essential fascination.

Full Review | Comment
08/11/07 05:12 AM
Frank Scheck
Hollywood Reporter
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Not exactly blazing cinema, but intellectually riveting.

Full Review | Comment
08/02/07 11:29 AM
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
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Until a worthwhile dramatized version of the Camden 28 comes along, this dutiful documentary will suffice.

Full Review | Comment
07/30/07 10:37 AM
Eric Monder
Film Journal International
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When it comes to political agitation, the Camden 28 are genuine heroes and deserve to be recognized for what they dared to achieve.

Full Review | Comment
07/29/07 01:22 PM
Phil Hall
EDGE Boston
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Times have changed, but many of the questions remain the same: How far would you go to stop a war you felt was unjust? Would you break the law if you felt that law to be by nature unlawful?

Full Review | Comment
07/27/07 02:07 PM
Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide
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A vivid and impassioned chronicle of unwavering moral courage under extreme duress.

Full Review | Comment
07/27/07 02:06 PM
Timothy Knight
Reel.com
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The moments never add up to a movie.

Full Review | Comment
07/27/07 02:05 PM
Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger
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Their story is inspiring and, all these years later, relevant.

Full Review | Comment
07/27/07 02:04 PM
V.A. Musetto
New York Post
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[Giacchino's] sympathy for his subjects, their cause and the tradition of Christian pacifism is evident yet doesn’t cloud the storytelling as he defies viewers not to stand in admiration and ask tough questions of themselves.

Full Review | Comment
07/27/07 02:01 PM
John P. McCarthy
Boxoffice Magazine
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Concise, inventive and unabashedly partisan, The Camden 28 is a small movie that contains multitudes.

| Comment
07/27/07 01:49 PM
Matt Zoller Seitz
New York Times
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a dully presented piece of cinema about a truly worthy group of subjects.

Full Review | Comment
07/26/07 07:56 PM
Chris Barsanti
Filmcritic.com
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Though the filmmaking is pedestrian, The Camden 28's timeless truths come through with resounding power.

Full Review | Comment
07/26/07 12:27 PM
Nathan Rabin
Onion AV Club
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The Camden 28 not only examines the animating forces of protest, but also the nature of betrayal, forgiveness and, ultimately, compassion.

Full Review | Comment
07/26/07 11:33 AM
Gene Seymour
Newsday
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With a brisk narrative that blends intrigue, tension, pathos and humor, Anthony Giacchino’s absorbing look back at a New Jersey antiwar group’s early-’70s arrest and trial is closer to living history than dry, academic harangue.

Full Review | Comment
07/26/07 03:15 AM
Mark Holcomb
Time Out New York
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An unremarkable talking-head docu nudged nearer to must-see status by the remarkable timeliness of its antiwar subject matter.

Full Review | Comment
07/25/07 03:15 AM
Ronnie Scheib
Variety
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In revisiting the oppressive measures employed by the FBI during that era, the viewer is treated to a welcome message about the right, if not the duty, to challenge authority, especially in the face of corruption, intransigence and utter arrogance.

Full Review | Comment
07/24/07 08:58 PM
Kam Williams
WBAI Web Radio
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A documentary about a watershed trial in 1973 of some anti-war activists from the Catholic Left who took a stand on the basis of conscience.

Full Review | Comment
07/24/07 12:30 PM
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice
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Fond, stinging, and finally instructive, the film assembles a comprehensive look back at the actions, arrest, and prosecution of a group of political malcontents (most of them young Catholics and some of them priests) in the summer of 1971.

Full Review | Comment
07/24/07 12:25 PM
Michelle Orange
Village Voice
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While no one will mistake director Anthony Giacchino for Michael Moore, the documentarian unfolds the drama of the arrest and eventual not guilty verdict of 28 Vietnam War protesters in 1971.

Full Review | Comment
07/24/07 11:29 AM
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve
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Giacchino has created a film in which every practical question has ethical implications...The Camden 28 opens our thinking to the values and calculations which guided these noble activists and their equally noble attorneys.

Full Review | Comment
07/23/07 09:05 PM
Harry Chotiner
culturevulture.net
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