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Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

EMAILPRINTFilms Transit International

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus reviews
58
7.3 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 14 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Documentary

Written by: Steve Haisman

Directed by: Andrew Douglas

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 13, 2005
DVD: March 14, 2006

Running Time: 84 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Jim White

A thought-provoking road trip through the American South, this film is a collage of stories and testimonies, almost invariably of sudden death, sin or redemption: Heaven or Hell, with no middle ground. (Films Transit International)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A travelogue unlike any other.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

A beautifully shot and edited film that treats its subjects fairly.

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70

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Made for the BBC, this travelogue of America's southern backwoods is both blessed and cursed by its fascination with the colorful--lively alt-country sounds and fancy word spinners like novelist Harry Crews.

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70

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Delightfully demented.

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63

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A movie about identity that can't quite pinpoint its own, Andrew Douglas' road-trip documentary about the Deep South does eventually meander toward audience enlightenment.

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60

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Ultimately fails to illuminate its subject, though it does offer some evocative moments and terrific music along the way.

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60

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

A lovely, faintly sinister travelogue.

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60

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Occasionally, this richly lyrical movie passes over the line separating sympathetic exploration from freak-show condescension.

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60

TV Guide Ken Fox

White's take on southern life is no more "real" than the stereotypes he's trying to disrupt, just cooler.

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50

Variety Leslie Felperin

Ultimately, pic feels very much like a romanticized, outsider's view of the South that willfully seeks out the culture's strangest, most weirdo aspects for other outsiders' gleeful delectation.

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50

Village Voice Joshua Land

Florida-born folksinger Jim White serves as guide on this musical tour of the rural South, conceptualized less as a state of mind than as an atmosphere.

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50

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Far too often, Douglas indulges his preference for the superficial over the substantive: The plentiful performance footage -- shot in overproduced, music-video fashion -- overwhelms the film, as do White’s purplish, faux-poetic musings.

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38

New York Post Kyle Smith

By the time White gets around to condescending remarks... the film has become a sort of BBC "Hee Haw," meant to reassure Brits and New Yorkers that the South is indeed a land of pistol-toting, Jesus-praising gap-toothed freaks.

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20

Film Threat Phil Hall

Tiresome, trite and choked with every lousy Dixie-fried stereotype imaginable.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Paul F. gave it an8:
Take your video camera to every charismatic small town church in the south, throw in some great country gospel music and some assorted tales from prison, bars, and eccentric yokels and you have Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. I thought this film might bash such a culture but it actually embraced it without absolutely agreeing to its a hell fire and brimestone tenet. I found the narrator to be quite spiritual in more of an open accepting type of way. Though many of the people in this film were quite certain what was what the narrator ceased to judge and loved the spirit of humanity for what it was.

Chris S. gave it a10:
This is a depiction of the South that eloquently illustrates it's uniqueness and beauty. With beautiful photography, haunting, stylized musical performances and candid interviews in backwoods bars, prisons and churches, the filmmakers capture the south of hardcore religion and mystical music, leaving aside the sterotypes of ignorance and bigotry.

Peter M gave it a0:
Appalling, like religion itself generally is though.

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