Wordiezett So much average

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

albertoveronese It seems to me that the peculiarity of the pictorial expression of cinema (and its spatial perception) is increasingly ignored by filmmakers; to create movies is possible to everyone, our world has never been so full with filmmakers - is the visual language of cinema arbitrarily interchangeable with the language of global television? Or, is a vlog entry a film? In 1998, I asked Gillo Pontecorvo what is Cinema? - Emotions are the most communicable goods in the world. If a film-director is touched by the expressive, the aesthetic or moral content of a story, it is probable that he'll communicate that to the public. What's dangerous is that nowadays audience, accustomed to triviality and self-deception, does not any longer consider as its belongings what the higher language of true cinema can be. Have you ever asked yourself what has cinema become - what is a good film?

liampohalloran I enjoyed this.I thought the nature of the family and the back story made the audience easily interested.the cuts to video footage of cinema footage and the boys leaving the apartment was an absolute winner.While we don't get a full back story on the dad and his impact its impact is evident through the boys interaction with him. His dis like of or non acceptance is pretty evident by the way he acts when the boys finally go on a road trip. I liked it, great footage, easy to like the rogue characters and enough left unexplained to make it a good film overall

leighlightfoot As a documentary this is a weird and strange insight into an isolated life fuelled by movies and music..... or it's not. A tale of a family of brothers, 1 sister, and mum and dad who live on Manhattan Island, New York City, and isolate themselves from society with only the father allowed keys to the front door and any real access to the outside world. The brothers become obsessed with movies, write out entire scripts and re-enact them with very impressive props and homemade costumes. They then discover, when one turns fifteen, that maybe they don't have to be so confined and can venture out alone ( be it dressed in a homemade horror mask ) Whilst I have very little doubt that this is a genuine family I do have doubts that this is a genuine tale. For having lived a life of such social isolation they seem the nicest and most balanced young men, although to be fair society isn't exactly balanced in itself so that's not a great example of why this seems such an unlikely truth. As mentioned before there is a lot that doesn't add up, why live in Manhattan? Why allow the kids such access to media and film when you believe society is corrupt? Why did a SWAT team show up during the documentary when the kids had been playing with prop fire arms for years? And so many more questions...... I have to say that I had doubts within the first 20 minutes as to the authenticity of this documentary. If it is authentic then it's an extraordinary tale, if it's not then I don't see the point. Sadly I think the latter. I found it hard to rate because of this so I gave it a 7 as it's either a real good old story or a hard to discern hoax.

Laurie A I gave it a 1 star due to believing the filmmaker and the brothers are lying through the film to make us believe their made up story just to get them all to Sundance. I just can't believe that a family with 7 children were locked away in an apartment for 14 years by a father, who is supposed to be the villain but comes off as more of a sad figure, and somehow one of them escapes when the father goes off grocery shopping and no one gets arrested but the son who is dressed like a horror movie figure and walks into a bank of all places. He never states how he escapes, just said he walked out the front door, but if you believe all the stories in their interviews, because the filmmaker doesn't touch on this, the father had the only key and LOCKED the front door every time he left the apartment locking his family in. So how did this boy walk out the front door? They soon all followed suit, but how? Very frustrating to watch a movie that the whole plot revolved around his escape and they never touched on how he actually did it, just kept saying "so then I walked out and kept walking". Yes, but how, your father had the only key and locked you in, remember? Did you bust the lock, did you pull a Mark DeFriest and fashion a key out of a cereal box, what? Our only deduction was in fact, the door was unlocked and he walked out with the mask on to see what kind of reaction he could get, especially walking into a bank, especially if he watched Quentin Tarantino movies and that the father never locked them in the apartment when he left. I think this film was more hype, she had a great publicist, they told their "story" to the press before Sundance so it generated a lot of interest and then they became instant celebrities, which is what they always wanted out of this.I also couldn't help but notice one of the brothers is conveniently missing from all of this but they never talk about why. I get the feeling he has morals and doesn't want to be apart of this scam because it's starting to tug at people's heart strings but that is just my guess, until he speaks, we'll never know. None of them can keep their stories straight and that's bothersome for me. In their interviews, Crystal tells of being welcomed by Oscar, the dad, into their home with open arms, yet she was a "stranger" and these kids were being locked away. How is that possible? No arrests were made another bother, the mother not coming into question, another bother when she was the only one collecting welfare, Social Security and Homeschool Checks. There's also the question about the Twin Towers being in their footage, the graininess of the footage, the "fangan forest" scene. I could go on. So many inconsistencies and questions about this so called documentary that I just couldn't in good conscience recommend it to anyone as a documentary, but perhaps when you're bored and want to know what the hype is about so you can find all the Easter Eggs and or come to your own conclusion.I will say this, the boys were charming, but they came off as actors so they were very likable. That's the only good thing I can say about this film.