Winnebago Man: Critic Reviews

Adulation -- even barbed adulation -- is irresistible.

Raises intriguing questions about our culture of online humiliation and the real-life destruction it can leave in its wake.

There's a pathos lurking around the edges of Winnebago Man, and it has nothing to do with issues of fame or the power of the Web and everything to do with aging and alienation, neither of which the documentary seems able to comprehend.

Was it all an act--or is this? Pay your money and find out.

That Mr. Rebney is a real character comes as no surprise. What's odd, given Mr. Steinbauer's obvious intelligence, is the director's blinkered view of his subject.

This strange, darkly funny documentary investigates the story of Jack Rebney, a Winnebago salesman who achieved notoriety based on outtakes of a corporate video he shot in the 1980s.

[A] frustrating, borderline exploitative, madly entertaining documentary.

[Director Ben Steinbauer's] blend of exploitation and sincerity proves remarkably efficient, and helps illustrate how new media have democratized the arts.

Although we find out a lot about this virtual hermit and develop an admiration for his cantankerous principles, the movie leaves some questions unanswered.

This engrossing documentary widens to consider the phenomenon of viral videos and the humiliation they can bring to their sometimes unsuspecting victims.

The movie becomes oddly deep and even poignant.

Winnebago Man is an intriguing look at the effects on one man's life; whether they're worth the cost is something Steinbauer leaves up to us.

At once scabrously funny and uncomfortably poignant...

Winnebago Man, which appears to be notably less staged than other documentaries of this ilk, doesn't relentlessly explore all the corners of Rebney's life -- which makes him an even more fascinating subject.

Perhaps the most disturbing issue raised in Ben Steinbauer's fascinating and often hilarious Winnebago Man has to do with the Internet's awesome ability to reduce complex and apparently dangerous behaviour to the level of banal spectacle.

Brilliantly encapsulates the transformative power of the online video boom.

When the director laments, "I feel like I've stepped into the Winnebago Man outtakes," we can only concur.

Good fortune smiled on this film, but the feeling persists: This triumph belongs to Rebney, not Steinbauer.

Whenever Rebney gets to be Rebney -- be it insulting, sweet or wearily perturbed -- Winnebago Man shows a full tank of irascible charm.

Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer went searching for the man behind the rants. Against all odds, Rebney manages to emerge with his dignity intact.

A shrewd, entertaining, fascinating and surprisingly touching documentary.

A hilarious film.

It isn't perfect, but hell, neither was the Winnebago.

Steinbauer doesn't shy away from the moral queasiness of that arrangement, and that's what gives Winnebago Man a lot of its appeal -- that tension between the considerable laughter it provokes and the questions raised about that laughter.

Absorbing and thought-provoking.