Grass

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A spirited, smart-alecky look at the ongoing conflict between a government that wants to eliminate pot and a public that wants to smoke it.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

This turns out to be an informative, involving, even sobering advocacy film.

Salon.com Jeff Stark

A flashy, smoker-friendly documentary on the twisted history of the evil weed -- and the misguided drug war against marijuana.

Film.com John Hartl

Grass is often closer to the sobering tone of the PBS show than it is to the silly "Weed," with its stoned, barely literate potheads discussing the quality of their dope.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

This jovial tour through changing attitudes toward cannibis is so plugged into pothead logic that the opening credits are rerun at the end.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A revealing, often amusing, sometimes disturbing look at the history and politics of marijuana use in American society.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

With its pointed narrative, the film makes its case with a minimum of pushiness and a subtle nod to its crowd.

TV Guide Ken Fox

He's (Mann) a solid historian and this film is full of fascinating facts, but he's a cultural critic at heart, and a good one at that.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's as entertaining and informative as anything Mann's ever done, and as good an example of grass humor as you're likely to find anywhere.

LA Weekly David Chute

Aims for crowd-pleasing impact over subtlety. But it's still a welcome corrective to the current "zero tolerance" fad.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Until something better comes along, we're just gonna have to keep the fires burning on this Ron Mann Joint.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

So heavy-handed and blatant in its posturings and so incomplete at 73 minutes that you simply feel like you've been harangued more than educated.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Charged with raucous energy and a satirical slant, this witty history lesson is preaching to the converted, sharing a knowing wink with everyone who's ever inhaled.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A well-researched and well-illustrated, if often facetious, record of the U.S. government's longtime war on cannabis. And while it's a little too single-minded, it's both fun to watch and quite informative.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Grass's relentless hard sell ultimately grows wearisome. Although only 80 minutes, it ends, and not a moment too soon, with a pot legalization rally that might well be reproduced outside the theater.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Grass is not much as a documentary. It's a cut-and-paste job, assembling clips from old and new anti-drug films and alternating them with pro-drug footage from the Beats, the flower power era and so on.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Rich with statistics and snazzy visuals, but it ignores those larger questions and, as a result, feels a tad naïve.

New York Post Hannah Brown

Strident, unrepentantly one-sided but often entertaining.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

It has as much of an ax to grind as the humorless and misguided bureaucrats it mocks.