Critic Reviews

• Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic

  Shot on video, and with the look of a PBS entry, it nevertheless manages to function on several levels -- all of them complex and sophisticated.

• Ted Fry, Seattle Times

  Culture shock is hopelessly inadequate to describe the experience of the young subjects of the riveting documentary Lost Boys of Sudan.

• Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

  Offers an opportunity to see a good movie and learn something about an issue that has received far too little attention in the U.S. press.

• Michael Booth, Denver Post

  It might help you understand an unfamiliar face walking toward you on the street, and that's a great accomplishment for any film.

• Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  A documentary about two refugees who come to the United States, it offers a detailed look at the hurdles they face but makes no attempt to analyze, explain or advocate changes that would help them.

• Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

  Lacking that exotic 'foreign' focus and by failing to address the hardships of their early lives, we're left with a routine film about teenagers making mistakes or growing up too fast.

• Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star

  The documentary trades in hope and humor, rather than despair.

• David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor

  A riveting movie.

• Karen Karbo, Oregonian

  The scenes of Peter and Santino's adjustment to life in Houston -- a garbage disposal does what? -- are at once quotidian, poignant and absurd.

• Marty Mapes, Movie Habit

  In spite of their streets-paved-with-gold expectations, there is no Heaven on Earth

• Jeffrey Bruner, Des Moines Register

  The film also doesn't get across the magnitude of the horror unfolding in the Sudan.

• Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City

  This is a very moving filmed document.

• Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune

  [Takes] a fly-on-the-wall approach to capture the small triumphs and personal setbacks these young men face in their new lives.

• Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press

  The people who made Lost Boys of Sudan have a compelling story to tell, but they haven't quite put their fingers on it.

• Steve Schneider, Orlando Weekly

  Never less than a quietly heart-rending experience.

• Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion

  The fact that it's an old story doesn't mean that this new telling of it doesn't, in its rather simple and unaffected way, carry considerable impact.

• Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews

  like a more intimate and tragic version of Balseros

• Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews

  Lost Boys of Sudan is a true strangers-in-a-strange-land story

• Jack Garner, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

  For American viewers, Lost Boys of Sudan not only details a great tragedy a half-a-world away, but also illuminates much that's good and bad about life in our own country.

Read all 19 critic reviews