The Camden 28.

"Concise, inventive and unabashedly partisan, The Camden 28 is a small movie that contains multitudes," writes Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Times. "The movie endorses every aspect of the group's motivation for plotting the draft-board break-in - from its certitude that the draft was an example of class bias and a form of government-sanctioned kidnapping to its conviction that Camden's decayed neighborhoods were economic collateral damage caused by racism, government oppression and the diversion of tax dollars to Vietnam." And it's "the most suspenseful movie in theaters right now."

"The film evokes an era when the Church led the fight for social justice instead of against it," writes David Edelstein in New York. "A denouement shows several of the Camden 28 marching against the current war. But the other side does a better job these days of making them inconsequential."

Michelle Orange, writing in the Voice, finds it "a bit of a slow burn... But when a Judas surfaces in their ranks, and they are suddenly facing 47-year sentences and the wrath (and ethical jujitsu) of J Edgar Hoover, the story begins to move in surprising—even shocking—directions."

"Stylistically, this is pure, grey Documentary 101: stock footage providing fuzzy, generic period detail; talking heads; plaintive music cues; and new footage of old anti-war protestors revisiting important locations from their pasts, camera crew in tow," writes Nathan Rabin at the AV Club. "After an inauspicious beginning, however, the film delivers one riveting, poignant twist after another."

Posted by dwhudson at August 2, 2007 9:20 AM