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88Not for the faint-hearted.
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88Mandoki has given us a powerful motion picture. Even those who disagree with the film's politics will be haunted by its message.
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80A riveting tale of survival and how even war cannot diminish a child's indomitable spirit.
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80Chilean-born actress Leonor Varela (TV's Cleopatra, a few seasons back) plays Chavo's mother, who, in her rage to see her children survive, powerfully embodies the film's moral center.
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80Alternately heartrending and buoyant, tragic and sweetly humorous, the film leaves an indelible impression on the heart and mind. It's among the best of the year.
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80Mandoki, who with this film returns to the Spanish-speaking cinema after a string of Hollywood films, has brought a sure sense of the visual and taut construction to Innocent Voices, based on a true story. It is filled with wrenching images.
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75Effective without being overwhelming.
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75Quite affecting, even if it doesn't rank with classics like "Open City" or "Forbidden Games."
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75The many riveting moments will stay with you for days, and Padilla is well up to the task of carrying this intense story on his tiny shoulders.
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75Mandoki never passes up a chance to increase the schmaltz level, but that doesn't lessen the impact of this harrowing account of a hellish childhood.
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75Heart-wrenching.
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75Location shooting gives this intermittently powerful film a semidocumentary feel.
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75The actors, all of whom seem too posed and pretty, are not particularly accomplished, and director Luis Mandoki lacks the visual imagination to bring the story to a boil.
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70It's only human to feel gripped, enraged, and even moved by the events depicted in Innocent Voices, a true account of one boy's experience in the crossfire of El Salvador's long, bloody civil war.
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70Mandoki's gripping film may pull on the heartstrings too knowingly, but it's hard to forget the sight of the village's children lying silent and still on every rooftop, praying the recruiting soldiers below will pass them by.
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70What's so powerful about Mandoki's film, which he co-scripted with Torres, is the complex, ever-surprising course that Chava takes toward manhood.
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70Gripping drama.
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67For such a harrowing portrait, Mandoki remains oddly distant but for a few scenes. He makes his points boldly when he should be making his points sting.
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63It's a harrowing tale, but one that gets phonied up with unnecessary slo-mos, manipulative soundtrack cues, and unrestrained thespianism.
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63Not a happy time at the movies. It bears the distinction of bringing to the screen a dark nugget of history.
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60While the respectable result is a more meaningful film than just about anything Mandoki worked on during his 17 years in Hollywood ("Angel Eyes," "Message in a Bottle"), pic suffers from an overindulgence of triumph-over-adversity cliches and a meandering narrative.
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50As an outcry against the forcible conscription of children into armies around the world, Innocent Voices, is an honorable film. But as a balanced portrait of a tragic civil war, it is simplistic and opaque.
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40For more than an hour, schmaltzmeister Luis Mandoki (Message in a Bottle) directs as if on assignment for Miramax.
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25War is hell, and so are bad movies about war.
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7
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KevinyPaz10
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TaraS.10This movie is so powerful. We watched it in spanish class and it pretty much made my year.