Restrepo
National Geographic Entertainment | Release Date: June 25, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
A film that is beautiful, harrowing, heartbreaking -- and necessary. Read full review
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
Restrepo is about soldiers, not politics. The question of whether U.S. troops belong there isn't posed. Their devotion to duty and each other is unquestioned. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
This movie will stir your heart and open your mind. It's a group portrait of practicing patriots. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
There is the sense they're fighting for each other more than for ideology. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Restrepo can be tedious at times and nerve-racking at others, but why shouldn't it be? That's exactly what Junger and Hetherington saw on the front lines, so that's what they show, with very little filter. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Because the war in Afghanistan is so much in the news now – it should always have been so – a movie like Restrepo is both a bracing document and, in a larger sense, a disappointment. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The film is a nearly unrelenting nightmare. Even interviews shot with the survivors after the fact have a current of dread. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
What Restrepo does so dramatically, so convincingly, is make the abstract concrete, giving the soldiers on the front lines faces and voices. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
As the war in Afghanistan returns to the front pages and the national debate, we owe the men in Restrepo, at the very least, 90 minutes or so of our attention. If nothing else, this film, in showing how much they care about one another, demands the same of us. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazinePam Grady
The filmmakers have created a wrenching piece of work that allows the viewer to draw his own conclusions-and should make anyone of whatever political persuasion think about exactly what they mean when claiming to "support the troops." Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Junger and Hetherington take our conflicted ideas about war and its let's-make-a-man-out-of-you purpose and throw them in our faces, in a way "Hurt Locker" never does. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Restrepo is an example of photojournalism at its finest. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Holleman
If you're looking for a political message, either for or against U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, this is not your movie. The directors were satisfied with telling us about a group of courageous, honorable young soldiers - a salute these men richly deserve. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
A gut-wrenching, politically neutral documentary that spends more than a year with a platoon of American GIs in a valley that's been called the most dangerous spot on Earth. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
According to this courageous, you-are-there documentary, the platoon took enemy fire almost every day, perhaps the longest exposure to combat the U.S. has engaged in since World War II. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The film is unusually free of cant and the usual trappings of war docs. There is no voice-over narration and very little dramatic underscoring. Right or wrong, the filmmakers shave matters of political policy and contextual analysis clean off the finished product, which runs a tight 94 minutes. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
It gives such a down-to-Earth view of the joys, terrors, boredom, anxieties and camaraderie in a war zone. Read full review
85
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
The low-key quality of the filmmaking in Restrepo only intensifies the reality of how much these kids are risking. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
You can't help but share the feelings, many of them subrational, that coarse through the soldiers as they live a hellish year in a hellish place. Read full review
80
EmpireMark Dinning
Powerful, terrifying and soulful, this real-life Hurt Locker is an intimate, often brilliant insight into combat and comradeship. Read full review
80
Village VoiceRob Nelson
For a movie that's both a study and a product of blood, sweat, and tears, an oft-cited mid-'60s quote from film and combat vet Samuel Fuller seems to apply: "Film is a battlefield," Fuller said in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou. "There's love, hate, action, violence, death. In a word: emotions." Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Stripped to a minimum of editorializing (but, like "The Hurt Locker," flush with sympathy), this Afghanistan-shot war documentary takes its cues from the unblinking style of cinema verité. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The movie premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, too soon to include a tragic denouement: in April the U.S. command surrendered the Korangal Valley to the Taliban. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
Engagement with the enemy isn't a possibility here. It's a certainty. The unit will face fire daily, sometimes as often as four or five times. The stress is incredible, the courage displayed even more so. Read full review
75
ObserverSara Vilkomerson
A documentary so real and unflinching (and at times deeply frightening) that it's hard to watch, but it is one of those film experiences that you'll feel glad about getting through. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The filmmakers offer no commentary. We watch. And what we see is explosive, deeply moving and impossible to shake. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The movie puts us so close to so much yet keeps its emotional distance -- as if to say, no matter how much we see, we'll never truly know. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Watching the film one comes away feeling the bond that links these guys. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Restrepo makes time to observe these men during brief off-duty stints -- at one point four use an iPod to form an impromptu, joyous dance party -- but the bulk of the film centers on their insanely dangerous and heroic work. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeFore
In-depth account of Army deployment in an Afghanistan hotspot shows soldiering at its most rugged. Read full review
70
VarietyJohn Anderson
But despite its remarkably intimate footage of war and loss, Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's documentary suffers from the same problem as the ongoing U.S. drama in Afghanistan: a lack of narrative coherence. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It's doubtful you'll ever see a combat documentary that channels the chaos of war as thoroughly as this one. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Even after experiencing the film, what they've gone through - and how they deal with it - deliberately remains a mystery. Read full review
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