63
There is more style here than story, but the style - slashing cuts delivered in queasy orange sunstroke tones, accompanied by the urgent bleat of the cellphone - is considerable.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
Cavite is such a shrewd melding of form and content that any seeming contradictions and shortcomings end up working to the film's advantage.
50
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
The hand-held camera work gives the film an effective documentary pulse, but it adds up to only half a movie.
75
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
It's easy to envision the big-budget remake, but hard to imagine a mainstream American production capturing the original's sour, sweaty immediacy.
83
Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer
It's all something of a stunt - "Speed" on a shoestring - but very well done.
70
For a guerrilla-style, no-budget Yank indie to even tackle issues of jihad terror and naive Western thinking is noteworthy in itself, but Gamazon and Dela Llana inflame the issues with a gutsy, athletic filmmaking package that shows what can be done with a minimum of tools.
25
The only rational explanation for how an abysmal no-budget film like Cavite could get released theatrically is that its makers, co-writer/directors Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana, have come up with a from-the-headlines hook too big to deny.
70
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
A textbook example of seat-of-the-pants guerrilla filmmaking.