80
This is one of those documentaries that stays with you for years. The injustice infuriates and the story, simply and deftly told, breaks your heart.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
As their extraordinarily brave black female attorney points out, at stake are not merely the rights of this family or indeed of all white farmers, but the future of race relations and human rights in Africa.
60
The film clandestinely captures marauders in action while embedding itself in the imperiled home of aging farmer Michael Campbell. He's not the movie's ad hoc martyr, but something more compelling: a simple man whose fight for personal justice has matured into patriotism.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Its awkward title notwithstanding, Mugabe and the White African offers the sort of narrative drama rarely found in documentaries.
80
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
Though much of the movie was shot in secret to protect the filmmakers, Bailey and Thompson managed to create a remarkably vivid portrait of a land and its people, while bringing us two unforgettable heroes in Campbell and Freeth.
80
The documentary is powerful, as far as it goes, but would be stronger if the filmmakers had been able to follow the story further.
70
The New York Times by Mike Hale
The courses of colonialism and racial strife were radically different in America and Australia than they were in Africa. That doesn't make Mr. Freeth's cause any less just, but it does mean that Mugabe and the White African needs to be approached with care.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
It seems to me that Campbell has a good case here--good enough, anyway, to convince the judges on the African court.
80
The documentary sometimes bears an eerie resemblance to Claire Denis' brilliant "White Material" in its tense evocation of menace stalking the periphery of the frame.