Critic Reviews

• V.A. Musetto, New York Post

  [Director] Colpaert makes nice use of blue and green hues, and he makes some valid points about the Iraqi war. But the script lacks coherence and ends with a 180-degree flip that lessens the impact of what has gone before.

• Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times

  G. I. Jesus may be a mixed bag, but it is so impressive in so many ways that it demands to be taken seriously.

• Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle

  For such a gritty indie film, it's galling that [Arquette] and his family are so handsomely photogenic in a generic Hollywood way. Where's the rebellious truth in that?

• Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times

  The choices made by the characters are sure to infuriate some, but at least they add to the discussion.

• , New York Magazine

  The scattershot approach may not be masterful, but it does land some glancing blows.

• Justin Chang, Variety

  This unruly hodgepodge of actual combat footage and Manchurian Candidate-style surrealism is a bold, often clumsy, but always intriguing piece of work.

• Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

  Amateurish production values and unpolished writing hinder this occasionally touching portrait of Jesus (Joe Arquette), a Hispanic Iraq war vet returning to his wife and daughter.

• Tony Macklin, Las Vegas Weekly

  G.I. Jesus is what a movie at a film festival should be -- creative, original, and challenging.

• Ted Murphy, Murphy's Movie Reviews

  G.I. JESÚS isn't perfect but in its modest manner it is an ambitious and intriguing film. It is packed with topics ranging from immigration to the deployment of potentially ill men and women to the lack of proper care for veterans to the haunting effects

• Bruce Feld, Film Journal International

  Writer-director Carl Colpaert brushes past the most interesting aspect of his own film.

• Devin Faraci, CHUD

  Everything that GI Jesus wants to talk about is worth discussing [but] sadly the third act hits the movie like a torpedo, sending it slowly sinking into failure.

• Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics

  An ambitious set of scrappy performances combined with a screenplay that threatens to fragment from shear edginess. Succeeds only due to the pure sincerity of the cast.

• Josh Rosenblatt, Austin Chronicle

  At times beautifully captures the fear and paranoia that accompany soldiers home from war but that too often gets muddled in the morass of Jesus' internal wanderings.

• Prairie Miller, WBAI Web Radio

  Defiant anti-war metaphorical amalgam of US military martyrdom and boy toy gladiator servitude.

• Larry Ratliff, San Antonio Express-News

  Like other underfunded indies ... G.I. Jesús plays more like a telenovela than a feature film.

• Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News

  An hour into things, G.I. Jesus takes a dramatic left turn, extending a middle finger to materialism and extolling the virtues of cheap beer and good Mexican food over the killing of innocents. It's a message that cuts across borders and politics.

• F.X. Feeney, L.A. Weekly

  ... Colpaert has so vividly seized the contemporary moment, and explored it with his own eyes and conscience.

Read all 17 critic reviews