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Critic Reviews
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It's the sloppy approach to context and the tabloid-y aspects of Vice that are ultimately harder to take than the self-aggrandizing bro-ness of it all.
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In a world that has exploded with instantaneously accessible information, television news is hard-pressed to figure out how to keep up. It takes a show like Vice to make other news magazine shows seem like they belong in a TV antiques shop.
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What Vice offers is not deep or thorough, but it is not without value. The news comes in pieces now; to get the full picture, you have to assemble it yourself.
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Vice tries to go where other news, documentary and magazine shows do not. That’s okay, though it does at times overstate its pioneering prowess.
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There are a whole lot of “Holy s--t!” moments, but it’s very real and astoundingly raw--without once giving you the idea these are show-off correspondents with a makeup artist and clean clothes.
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Despite showing some very gruesome imagery--a real decapitated head, for example--and having a swaggy, “we’re so hip we send our reporters into dangerous places looking like they just rolled out of bed” self-aggrandizement, Vice is fundamentally earnest.
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Vice seems to be in search of some sweet spot between “60 Minutes” and “Jackass,” and there’s enough here to suggest that such a spot may exist. The concept could work, especially if Smith and his correspondents were more inclined to point the cameras away from themselves.
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The problem with Vice isn’t its insistent aggrandizement but its excessive softheadedness. It’s journalism at the intersection of shallow and gullible, where they meet, high-five and compare tattoos.
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It's graphic--disturbingly and, some would say, unnecessarily, so.... But it's also intelligent and enlightening.
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The lack of polish makes Vice all the more riveting. [5 Apr 2013, p.63]
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This isn’t look-at-me journalism with a fitted Gap t-shirt. It’s more of a holy-hell-can-you-believe-this approach that fights perfectly on a cable channel trying to do something different.
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Hosted by Vice founder Shane Smith--hardly a natural on camera--the magazine nevertheless resonates precisely because it zeroes in on unsettling tales of violence and cruelty abroad, at a moment when TV news frequently seems preoccupied with trifles at home.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 17 out of 24
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Mixed: 1 out of 24
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Negative: 6 out of 24
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Apr 30, 2013
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Apr 6, 2013
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Apr 17, 2013