South of the Border
South of the Border Image
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Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 19 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.5 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

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  • Summary: In January 2009, Oliver Stone travelled to Venezuela to interview President Hugo Chavez, and examine the way Chavez has been portrayed in the U.S. media. Was Chavez really the “anti-American” force the media claimed he was? Once the journey began, however, Stone and his crew found themselveslves going beyond Venezuela to several other countries, and interviewing seven Presidents in the region, telling a larger and even more compelling story. In casual conversation, Stone sits down with Presidents Chavez, Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nestor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raul Castro (Cuba). (Good Apple Productions)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 19
  3. Negative: 4 out of 19
  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    83
    Yes, Stone gets cozy with Hugo Chávez, soft-pedaling the Venezuelan president's crackdown tendencies, but he also captures South America in a paradigm shift, wrenching itself free of centuries of colonial control. The film is rose-colored agitprop, but it catches a current of history.
  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    80
    Good-humored, illuminating and without cant, Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's documentary South of the Border is a rebuttal of what he views as the fulminations and lies of right-wing media at home and abroad regarding the socialist democracies of South America.
  3. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Keith Uhlich
    60
    The aural and visual overload that marks most of the director's work is here in spades--few documentaries look and sound so distinctive.
  4. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    30
    The 70-minute movie -- which was co-written by the British-Pakistani commentator Tariq Ali, author of the 2006 study "Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope," and photographed in part by docu-doyen Albert Maysles -- is amateur night as cinema, as lopsided and cheerleadery as its worldview.

See all 19 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. iamhe
    10
    The flack that critics have aimed at this film is completely unjustified. The focus of the film is on countering years of blatant "big lie" propaganda aimed at Chavez and other Latin American nationalist leaders who have broken from U.S. domination. And the film makes its case regarding that propaganda onslaught very precisely and strongly, completely debunking it by using clips from U.S. news media and then countering with interviews and facts. The attack of the critics on this film is just one more example of that mendacious campaign, and if you miss this film because of it then you will yourself have become a victim of the U.S. media's propaganda. See this film and decide for yourself!… Expand

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