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Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
Metascore
58 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 14
  3. Negative: 2 out of 14
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    A travelogue unlike any other.
  2. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    75
    A beautifully shot and edited film that treats its subjects fairly.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Crust
    70
    Delightfully demented.
  4. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    70
    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.
  5. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    63
    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.
  6. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Frank Scheck
    60
    Ultimately fails to illuminate its subject, though it does offer some evocative moments and terrific music along the way.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    60
    White's take on southern life is no more "real" than the stereotypes he's trying to disrupt, just cooler.
  8. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    60
    A lovely, faintly sinister travelogue.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    60
    Occasionally, this richly lyrical movie passes over the line separating sympathetic exploration from freak-show condescension.
  10. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    50
    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.
  11. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Joshua Land
    50
    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.
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Leslie Felperin
    50
    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.
  13. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    38
    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.
  14. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Phil Hall
    20
    Tiresome, trite and choked with every lousy Dixie-fried stereotype imaginable.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 6 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 1 out of 3
  1. PaulF.
    8
    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.… Full Review »
  2. ChrisS.
    10
    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.… Full Review »
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