Darfur Now: Critic Reviews

There are wounding tales of rape and murder, of parents watching their children massacred, in this clear-eyed documentary account of the genocide in Darfur.

A quiet, methodical call to action.

By showing the struggles and efforts of about half a dozen people, it puts a human face on the tragedy.

Provides context and an invaluable human face to a story that too many Westerners perceive as distant or irrelevant, if they perceive it at all. See Darfur Now, and you won't read the daily news the same way again.

Slick, impassioned, and guardedly upbeat.

The argument can be made that the subject's urgency excuses the need for artfulness; the opposite, of course, is true.

A disquieting, and somewhat disjointed, call to arms.

The title says Darfur Now -- not Darfur Then, not Darfur Sometime. But the question it asks emphatically is, Darfur Now What?

The depressing subtext is that even with detailed proof of ongoing genocide, it takes movie stars to get to the movers and shakers, and to get worthy movies like this one into theaters.

If it accomplishes nothing else, Darfur Now locates Sudan on the map -- More than that, the film provides faces for the people of Darfur.

This is the kind of film that doesn't end after the credits roll, and it's a gold-star example for what a documentary should do: inspire.

Nelson Mandela may not have defeated South African apartheid, but his story mobilized worldwide protest, which explains the focus on individuals in this effective advocacy film about the genocide in Darfur.

It's a brutal mess, and Braun doesn't sugarcoat things.

Braun and his team manage to make this knotty situation lucid and palatable. Darfur Now could conceivably make a difference in enlisting people to the cause.

The documentary Darfur Now proves that -- no matter how important the subject matter -- following various people around with a camera doesn't necessarily make a film.

In movie making, as in life, it's not enough to mean well. The real challenge is in being meaningful.

Thoughtful, sobering, hopeful, despairing, inspirational, depressing, and just in time for the holidays comes Darfur Now, a documentary about genocide in the Sudan.

Darfur Now is effective pamphleteering, but only an occasionally compelling documentary film.

While its activist subjects are indeed laudable, the film squanders much of its running time on ephemera.

The best material is the result of the rare opportunity to shoot inside those refugee camps: hearing firsthand testimony from victims about the catastrophic horrors inflicted on their villages is forceful and persuasive.

Darfur Now will have to act as a moral entertainment, a conscientious objection we buy tickets to see.