Beyond the Gates Critic Reviews

Tense and gut-wrenching, Beyond the Gates is a horrifying story told with grace and compassion.Read the full review

John Hurt is magnetic as a Catholic priest running a school where terrified Tutsi have taken refuge, while Hugh Dancy, as a naive teacher, represents white commitment to black Africa at its most impotent and unreliable.Read the full review

Powerful and moving.Read the full review

Hurt steals scenes with a brilliantly nuanced character, a man bitter enough to make every line delivered to his peers a challenge or an accusation, yet experienced enough to present those challenges with an ingratiating politesse that only cracks in extremis.Read the full review

The film may employ the well-worn tradition of filtering African stories through the experiences of Europeans, but they use the conceit for some penetrating revelations.Read the full review

Although in many respects a more stylish, authentic, tougher-minded film than "Hotel Rwanda," director Michael Caton-Jones' respectable and well-intentioned Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) still falls into the trap of filtering an inherently African story through the eyes of a noble white protagonist -- in this case, two of them.Read the full review

Though less reassuring and not as dramatically coherent as "Hotel Rwanda," it still packs a hard punch.Read the full review

Sadly, this is the sort of movie in which the white Europeans do all the talking and worrying with each other. The Africans, for the most part, are either terrified, cowering, wincing masses or corpses strewn in the dirt.Read the full review