Critic Reviews
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Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
It's tempting to watch If a Tree Falls doc about a scraggly group of ecoterrorists with a chip of skepticism on your shoulder. Yet the film creates a fantastic moral ambivalence.
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Stephanie Merry, Washington Post
Curry tells a compelling tale about the differences of opinion over what constitutes desperate measures, and how readily we throw around a term like terrorism.
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Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Watching it may not change anyone's ideology, but it will force you to see the players as complex people with understandable motivations.
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Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
The problem is that the heart of the movie is McGowan. He's just not a very compelling figure.
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Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
The gripping documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front offers an intimate look at the radical environmental group.
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Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
Unless you are a true believer in the tenets of deep ecology, the film may seem more like an apology for the group's dangerous activities.
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Simon Foster, sbs.com.au
As emotive and far-reaching as the issues involved are, this incisive feature is most potent when capturing Daniel McGowan's life and mind dismantling.
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Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics
Now locked down as a terrorist in America's CMU system, ELF activist Daniel McGowan lit more than a few fires.
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Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope
The film is a fascinating look inside a little-known arm of the larger environmental movement.
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Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
An earnest and even-handed documentary about a naive and whiny mild-mannered thirtysomething ecology activist.
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Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Considerably more thought-provoking than expected.
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Chris Faraone, Boston Phoenix
Although kind to the plights of activists who face hard time for victimless crimes, this film is balanced -- conservatives could easily interpret it as validation of the group's persecution.
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Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
McGowan's views on the environment have taken several turns, but none of them is illustrated in the film, in which he comes off as passive and a little whiny.
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Kelly Vance, East Bay Express
An intelligent look at civil disobedience and the official criminalization of enviros who take peaceful demonstrations one step further.
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Shawn Levy, Oregonian
"If a Tree Falls" never loses sight of the human beings at the heart of the conflict -- no matter what side of the conflict they're on.
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Fr. Chris Carpenter, Movie Dearest
Gets a bit bogged down in legal and procedural details during its final 30 minutes but it will, hopefully, open eyes and hearts.
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Phil Hall, Film Threat
It serves an important purpose in calling attention to environmental issues. In today's political climate, environmentalism only gets discussed in the context of job creation or monetary savings.
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Chris Barsanti, Filmcritic.com
The story of how a muscular anti-logging campaign devolved into sectarian turmoil that shot off radicalized cells like burning cinders is ultimately what drives the film and makes it so rewarding
Read all 18 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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"If a Tree Falls" is an insightful documentary that could have used a little more distance from its subject, Daniel McGowan, who is facing charges of terrorism and possible life imprisonment for arson which he committed while a member of the Earth Liberation Front(ELF).… More
"If a Tree Falls" is an insightful documentary that could have used a little more distance from its subject, Daniel McGowan, who is facing charges of terrorism and possible life imprisonment for arson which he committed while a member of the Earth Liberation Front(ELF). What is being explored is how an activist moves from peaceful protest to more violent means of expression. As shown here, it can have something to do with being pepper sprayed during civil disobedience which is cruel on somebody intent on giving themselves up. Specific to this case is the frustration at witnessing the destruction to the forests by corporate logging. While the documentary is definitely sympathetic towards McGowan, it also talks to all sides including law enforcement and logging company executives who explain that they plant six trees for every one cut down, per law. So, maybe if they could communicate that better to the protesters, things might not be so acrimonious between the two sides.
The documentary explores another failed bit of communication which is the word terrorist and how overused it has become. As McGowan says, what he did was just property destruction, wherein nobody got hurt, even though it is inferred that the ELF was taking on more sinister aims before it shattered. So, just because a person is more afraid after being mugged, does that make it terrrorism, too?
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Informative and almost completely made up of actual footage, If A Tree Falls does a great job of capturing all sides of the argument towards clear-cutting trees, showing that the Earth Liberation Front isn't as bad as the media makes them out to be, but also showing the… More
Informative and almost completely made up of actual footage, If A Tree Falls does a great job of capturing all sides of the argument towards clear-cutting trees, showing that the Earth Liberation Front isn't as bad as the media makes them out to be, but also showing the level-headed and compassionate loggers whom also concern themselves with the quality of land. One of the best documentaries of 2011.
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It puts a deserving face on a group of people we only know by the label of 'eco-terrorist'. I can't say I personally approve of violence as a solution to any problem (even if the destruction is only of property) but it was interesting to see where the E.L.F. was coming… More
It puts a deserving face on a group of people we only know by the label of 'eco-terrorist'. I can't say I personally approve of violence as a solution to any problem (even if the destruction is only of property) but it was interesting to see where the E.L.F. was coming from and why they felt their actions were necessary. Its hard to keep calling someone a 'terrorist' once you realize that they have a family and they don't appear that different from anyone else.
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