Frustratingly, the film tells us little about the crime itself and the denouement is a little unconvincing. The taste of sweat and fear is, however, real enough.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 26, 2010

Real inmates are extras, real cells provide the scenery: it has the desperate vitality of something barely made-up.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 25, 2010

Less than the sum of its parts? Yes. Nice parts? Yes.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 25, 2010

Lion's Den is an unqualified success.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 25, 2010

[Features] a strong central performance and convincing depiction of the compartmentalisation of Argentina's women.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 25, 2010

The results are mixed -- a handful of moments of genuine, undeniable power, interspersed with a fair number of listless scenes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 31, 2009

The dimly lit, exquisitely composed cinematography, by Guillermo Nieto, adds to the draw of this highly recommended movie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 3, 2009

Although it is not a comedy, Lion's Den is suffused with a sense of life lived in the present. Even the grimmest moments are not exploited to instill fear and loathing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 3, 2009

Part meticulous character study, part hyperrealist drama...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 2, 2009

A portrait of a subculture whose members take pride in walking their kids to the penitentiary's pre-K class.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 1, 2009

Once the film devolves into a drag-down fight for custody with Julia's mother, only Gusman's nuance saves us from a script that seems geared more toward screeching overacting.

| Jul 1, 2009

The film's only value may be to make foreign viewers aware, at the very simplest level, of the unique practices of the Argentinean penal system.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 28, 2009

At its most interesting when it shows the lives of women and children prisoners, the film has the feel of a movie-of-the-week cliche when it returns to Julia's improbable crime.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 18, 2008

Pic's overall style and Martina Gusman's bold lead have a great deal to recommend them.

| Oct 18, 2008

A powerful blast about jails in Argentina.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 18, 2008

Powerful, emotional filmmaking and acting give a lift to the familiar women-in-prison film.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008