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Trudell
Metascore
48 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 14
  3. Negative: 1 out of 14
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Walter Addiego
    75
    It's an intriguing portrait, but it makes no pretense at objectivity, erring on the side of hero worship.
  2. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Erin Meister
    75
    A thought-provoking and graceful portrait of a tenacious peace warrior whose frankness is his greatest weapon.
  3. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Mark Holcomb
    70
    Unfortunately, Rae's film is split down the middle, and the appeal of its latter half depends on your tolerance for earnest politico-poetry set to wailing rock guitar and Native American chants and extraneously endorsed by celebrity talking heads. The backstory portion of the film, though, is riveting.
  4. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    63
    Rae's 80-minute film isn't able to answer every question or flesh out important details of these events, and she spends more time on Trudell's artistic endeavors than on his direct political action.
  5. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Jeannette Catsoulis
    60
    No one in the film has a bad word to say about Mr. Trudell, despite his 17,000-page F.B.I. dossier; and by the time Robert Redford assures us that meeting him is not dissimilar to meeting the Dalai Lama, you may feel that all this worship does not do justice to an unusually stormy and complicated life.
  6. Variety
    Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    60
    More hagiography than history, Heather Rae's long-in-production portrait of Native American activist and poet John Trudell has the uncritically admiring feel of authorized biography.
  7. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    58
    Anyone looking for history lessons from Rae's documentary will have to be patient and alert enough to pick through the poetry.
  8. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    50
    Feels padded in some places, truncated in others. It also feels too respectful, especially when its subject is such a deep thinker and questioner of authority.
  9. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    50
    Rae does offer a riveting introduction to the American Indian civil rights movement.
  10. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    50
    Unfortunately, absent a more objective context, Trudell's gnomic utterances do little to support those sentiments. By preaching so relentlessly to the choir, this film misses an opportunity to show what got them to sing in the first place.
  11. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Bob Westal
    40
    While Trudell has a few interesting and emotional moments in its second half, from the start it is badly hobbled by its worshipful tone.
  12. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    40
    The man whom the FBI described as "extremely eloquent, therefore extremely dangerous" here seems about as threatening as Mother Teresa.
  13. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Tim Grierson
    40
    How could a movie about someone with one of the nation's longest FBI files be this dull?
  14. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    25
    Politics aside, Trudell plays like an infomercial for its subject rather than a serious examination of the man and his beliefs.
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