100
The Playlist by Chris Barsanti
Adding to the fraught complexities of economic insecurity and environmental devastation, When Lambs Become Lions wraps its story in a sweep of broodingly gorgeous imagery.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Gorgeously photographed and edited, the film has the look and pacing of a thriller, albeit one with near-Shakespearean dramatic dimensions.
70
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
That Kasbe, who also shot and co-edited, so firmly embedded himself in this distant, hardscrabble world results in a wealth of candid, you-are-there moments that highlight the complex intersection between the fraught state of wildlife preservation and the desperate scramble for human survival.
80
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
It’s a striking, human portrait of men in trouble, looking for escape and possibly redemption.
80
When Lambs Become Lions thoughtfully and provocatively articulates a collision of social and environmental crises in which man is both victor and victim: a circle of life that stalls us all.
88
RogerEbert.com by Matt Fagerholm
Filmed over the course of three years and clocking in just over 70 minutes (minus credits), When Lambs Become Lions is a triumph of shrewdly economical storytelling on the part of Kasbe and his co-editors Frederick Shanahan and Caitlyn Greene.
68
It’s unlikely that any documentary could make us feel half as bad for the poachers as we do for their prey, which might not even be Kasbe’s aim. He succeeds in bringing shades of grey to a situation usually thought of in black-and-white terms — not enough to change many minds, perhaps, but at least enough to open some.
80
Kasbe has imbued When Lambs Become Lions with the feel of a thriller rather than a polemic.
75
Think Michael Mann’s Heat but in East Africa and with real-world stakes.
63
A solid, engrossing docudrama — staged and acted — not, as its director claims, a documentary. That still doesn’t rob the film of its simple power, the suspense of wondering just who will turn on whom, and if elephants will be killed in the bargain.