Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
City Lights Pictures | Release Date: August 17, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
PremiereGlenn Kenny
As forceful as its title suggests, and sometimes unbelievably ballsy. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
There's no denying its grip: It is lurid, fascinating, sickening, and eye-opening. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Kohn’s gripping Manda Bala is the opposite of a high-school science doc. It’s a free-form portrait of a place--Brazil--with scary running motifs: kidnapping, mutilation, plastic surgery, bulletproofing, and frog farming. Read full review
80
VarietyScott Foundas
Crammed into a lively 85-minute package delivered with loads of dark humor and cinematic flair, this is a worthy winner of Sundance's Grand Jury prize for documentary. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichelle Orange
With an excess of excitable style, samba music, and heady, montage-driven metaphor that threatens to bury his film's key ideas, young-gun director Kohn--a New Yorker with South American roots--has clearly set out to make a splash. So far, he's succeeded. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Gorgeous and terrifying. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
There’s no denying the sharpness of his (Jason Kohn) insights into a society that hasn’t so much collapsed as reconstituted itself around venality, profiteering and rage. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Edgy and provocative but with a weakness for sensationalistic footage. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The title is Portuguese for "send a bullet" and the clever American tag line is "the rich steal from the poor; the poor steal the rich." Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Although it is never explicitly stated, Manda Bala essentially argues that when the middle class disappears, the rich and the poor end up feeding on each other, like the frogs that go cannibalistic at the frog farm that gives the movie its central metaphor. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
What the film does best is document the lengths to which people are going to protect themselves -- subcutaneous microchips for identification, ever-heavier armor for fancy cars. Read full review
70
Washington PostPhilip Kennicott
The subject is huge and worthy, and the film makes a noble effort to embrace some of its complexity. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMaureen M. Hart
By the end, despite the film’s beautiful cinematography, persuasive subjects and ironically upbeat soundtrack, we just feel bludgeoned. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Instead of seriously investigating corruption, money laundering and the buying of politicians, Manda Bala would rather spend its time showing slimy brown frogs slithering over one another as they are dumped from one container into another. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Scenes of harvested frogs provide an apt metaphor for Brazil's miserable have-nots, so apt that Kohn can't resist beating it to death. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Manda Bala is exciting and stylish, and Kohn knows exactly what he wants the movie to say. But he makes most of his points in the first 10 minutes, with disgusting slow-motion frog footage and sound bites from social scientists pointing out how "corruption is what links all other crimes." The rest is just so much show. Read full review
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