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Jimmy Carter Man from Plains
Metascore
58 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 22 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 22
  3. Negative: 1 out of 22
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    100
    An intriguing document, and the first significant film ever made about a former U.S. president.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    83
    It's galvanizing to see it played out through the furious contradiction of Carter's personality. He is pious, stubborn, compassionate, testy, moral, unreasonable, and wise.
  3. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    80
    The portrait of Carter has been described as hagiography, but it isn't a stretch to view his quiet integrity as saintly next to the track records of his successors.
  4. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    Shows a man whose beliefs, both political and religious, seem to reinvigorate him; he even carries his own luggage in airports and hotels.
  5. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    75
    Though not exactly a valentine to the octogenarian Nobel Peace Prize winner, the film is a lovingly rendered, candid and intimate portrait.
  6. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    75
    A documentary that falls somewhere between overlong and compelling as it follows the 39th president on his controversial book tour.
  7. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    75
    It's a remarkably intimate look at the man and his thinking, and you wish for more history to flesh out the biographical aspects of his life.
  8. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    70
    I'm still not quite sure why it's so compelling. I think this movie's appeal is overdetermined, as we used to say in sophomore Marxist-theory class, meaning that it derives from so many sources you can't keep track of them all.
  9. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    67
    These may be the qualities of a great man, but they're not exactly the stuff of a great documentary subject, especially given how hard Carter works to defuse the emotions stirred up by his book.
  10. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    63
    There is no doubting Jonathan Demme's admiration for our 39th President: It's apparent from the opening scenes.
  11. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    63
    The minutiae of Carter's book tour isn't always enthralling, but his personality drives the film: pious, stubborn, devoted to his wife, curious, professional, warm and yet slightly removed from the fray, conciliatory, meticulous, self-effacing, funny, decent, intellectually rigorous and firmly committed to his positions.
  12. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    60
    Uncritical, but not unaffecting.
  13. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    50
    Blandly interesting.
  14. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Sid Smith
    50
    Carter comes off as compassionate and intelligent. But the complex issues brought up in his book don't get much more than a superficial debate.
  15. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    50
    A bit of a docu-mess.
  16. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    50
    Jimmy Carter documentary is a smug, self-righteous monologue.
  17. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    50
    This narrowly cast documentary focuses so exclusively on a publicity tour the former president took in the closing months of 2006 that a more accurate title might be "Jimmy Carter How I Sold My Book."
  18. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    50
    Man From Plains isn't about engagement; it's about disengagement from Mr. Carter's critics and his more provocative beliefs. It's also about legacy building.
  19. Variety
    Reviewed by: Ronnie Scheib
    50
    Thanked and vilified from coast to coast, Carter remains steadfast in his belief that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories are unjust and counterproductive.
  20. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    50
    The movie doesn't offer much new to anyone familiar with Carter.
  21. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    40
    Demme's documentary portrait, Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains, has no surfeit of good intentions. In fact, running over two hours, they're nearly suffocating.
  22. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    25
    There isn't enough revealing material in the tedious documentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains to sustain an 800-word magazine profile, let alone a two-hour film.
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User Reviews

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User Score
6.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 7 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. ChadS.
    7
    Former president Jimmy Carter was still in office when Carl Reiner's "The Jerk" played in first-run theaters. Navin R. Jackson(Steve Martin) hailed from the south(Mississippi), and was a white boy raised by a black family, just like former president Carter, a Georgia boy, who although not adopted like Cat Juggler, was looked after by an African-American woman named Rachel, a sharecropper, during his formative years in Plains. When the ex-president visits Darfur, he wears the traditional Sudanese clothing, and dances, badly, to the Sudanese beat, albeit not so in a condescending fashion, because this Nobel Peace Prize-winning octogenarian feels a genuine ease around black people. But Carter has the rhythm of ex-Laker Mark Madsen(best ESPN highlight, ever!), as does Navin, when he claps in time to the songs of his adopted family. Jimmy Carter is not a jerk. "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" is not a racist book. Read it. Or more to the point, buy it. This documentary is more about commerce than art. There's no way of getting around it, "Jimmy Carter: Man From the Plains" does play like an informercial for his hardcover bestseller about Israel's totalitarian-like occupation of Palestinian homelands. But the film also speak volumes of the pervading anti-intellectualism that's dumbing down our culture, in which people will make vicious attacks on a person's character without any substantiation to back up their opening salvos and thrown gauntlets.… Full Review »
  2. RobS.
    0
    Terrorist enabler, blame America 1st, giving away our territory (Panama Canal), appointing the most radical leftist Attorney General in history (Ramsey Clark), oh and don't let me forget his cowardly handling of our hostages in Iran. How dare they make a propaganda piece reinventing this man to something he never was or incapable of being. PS he's also antisemitic.… Full Review »
  3. JayH.
    8
    Impressive documentary of a very impressive former president. Very thought provoking and portrays a neutral viewpoint. I believe Jimmy Carter will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents ever, and this film shows why.… Full Review »
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