| 100 |
Baltimore Sun
No Man's Land is a 98-minute wonder: this story of three men in a trench renews the meaning of the word "trenchant."
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| 100 |
Chicago Tribune
In the remarkable, ferociously intelligent new film No Man's Land, Bosnian writer-director Danis Tanovic gives us a movie portrait of the Bosnian War, a conflict that has devastated his country, friends and neighbors -- and found in it both shocking humor and searing, relentless tragedy.
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| 100 |
New York Post
An absorbing, deeply affecting, well-acted --and remarkably evenhanded -- antiwar statement. It's also incredibly suspenseful and very blackly funny.
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| 100 |
New Times (L.A.)
Tanovic describes it as "a very serious film with a sense of humor." It is an apt description for a very remarkable film, one of the best of the year.
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| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
Almost more valuable as a piece of foreign policy than as the highly accomplished work of cinema it is.
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| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The film is exciting in two big ways: its simplicity of story (Tanovic does not get bogged down trying to give us an epic history) and the breadth of Tanovic's vision.
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| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
A savage comedy about the war in the former Yugoslavia that artfully mixes comic absurdism with a passion for what's right and a concern for the individuality of all concerned.
|
| 90 |
LA Weekly
Steven Mikulan
Tanovic steers his story away from feel-good brotherhood clichés and toward the darker reaches of human nature. The principal cast is excellent.
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| 90 |
Wall Street Journal
A deeply serious and seriously hilarious fable of the lunacy of war.
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| 90 |
Time
All the actors in No Man's Land are wonderfully alive, fractious and unpredictable. Their performances also help break down the schematics and turn this into an emotionally potent, powerfully thoughtful and finally tragic experience.
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| 90 |
Rolling Stone
Fierce, funny and finally devastating, Tanovic's superb film offers a timely look at the roots of civil war and acts of terrorism on both sides that can be exploited by political and media hypocrites alike.
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| 88 |
Charlotte Observer
Begins and ends quietly, like stirrings of thunder from a distant storm. In between comes a tragedy that rolls over us like a compact hurricane.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
It's a bleakly funny parable that could be titled "Between Enemy Lines."
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| 88 |
Miami Herald
A searing, heartbreaking metaphor for the futility of war.
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| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Like this diabolically designed weapon of war, Tanovic's film is coil-sprung to explode on the unsuspecting.
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| 83 |
Entertainment Weekly
It's a merciless and mirthlessly funny antiwar weapon from a filmmaker who has seen battle firsthand and has lived to make art from memories of hell.
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| 80 |
Variety
As a tyro auteur, Tanovich has a heavy-handed way of delineating characters and situations that makes this well-meaning film awfully familiar at times.
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| 80 |
TV Guide
Ends on a cruel, cynical note that would surely make Billy Wilder snort with approval.
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| 80 |
Film Threat
While the audience has its laughs along the way, the violent tension of war often threatens to erupt, and slowly, subtly gathering force is the film's emotional weight, which is potently felt by the film's indelible (if not exactly unexpected) concluding image.
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| 75 |
New York Daily News
Writer-director Danis Tanovic, a Bosnian who spent years documenting his homeland's turmoil, makes a bold feature-film debut with this funny, sobering message movie.
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| 75 |
Boston Globe
From beginning to end, it bristles with ironies in classic Eastern European absurdist style.
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| 75 |
USA Today
Land has a lot of funny moments, which are no less serious for being so, especially when the script turns politically prickly.
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| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Some of the film's points are made a bit too heavily, but the subject is as timely as it is timeless, and many of the performances strike a pitch-perfect balance between parody and passion.
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| 70 |
The New York Times
One of the movie's dark running jokes is that everyone seems to speak a different language and has trouble communicating. The continual struggle of people to make themselves understood becomes a metaphor for the war itself.
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| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Patrick Z. McGavin
while the war-as-insanity metaphor clearly fits the cruel, heartbreaking story, its force is undercut by a succession of character types -- ambitious television journalists, outmatched UN peacekeepers, overbearing politicians.
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| 70 |
Washington Post
You want a happy ending? You want sunshine, sentimentality, a sense of justice and honor and duty? Me too. But you won't find it here.
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| 70 |
Village Voice
A mordant battlefield allegory with an absurdist edge.
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| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Undeniably riveting.
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| 60 |
Washington Post
A well-mounted, macabre seriocomedy with passing punchlines. And for about half the movie, it's compelling stuff.
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