An outrageous, fascinating study of the Hollywoodization of one man in progress.

| Jul 12, 2016

What the film really spotlights is a cultural clash violently, awkwardly resisting the tenuous unifying powers of art. The Westerners -- including Davenport -- see in Muthana the protagonist.

| Feb 17, 2014

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Nina Davenport's unapologetically cunning doc exceeds the sum of its parts to become almost unmanageably allegorical and even an indictment of its own shock-and-awe premise.

| Aug 24, 2009

Particularly fascinating is the way in which it this documentary examines the filmmaker's relationship to the film's subject, and the role documentary filmmakers play in shaping their subjects' futures.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 27, 2009

Wickedly ironic and often moving.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 23, 2009

If learning about other cultures shows that we're all basically alike, Operation Filmmaker is a reminder that foreign countries have their own share of nitwits, too.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 25, 2008

The antagonism between filmmaker and subject reminds us that reality is never a passive still life, but a volatile entity with its own ideas on how it is to be represented.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 24, 2008

Davenport focuses deep on the Hollywood do-gooder mentality and her own complicity in treating Mohmed as a symbol of the war and not as a flawed person.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2008

It's fearless filmmaking. And the surprising observations about cultural differences and insights into the movie production process make the whole thing worthwhile.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 17, 2008

What might have been a vanity project emerges as a surprisingly complicated morality tale.

Full Review | Jun 30, 2008

Everyone here comes out smelling bad -- that's why the film's so good.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 20, 2008

This gut punch of a documentary will knock you for a loop.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 13, 2008

An exit strategy in Iraq? This self-aware study shows how hard it'll be.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 6, 2008

Veteran documentary filmmaker Nina Davenport parses an ill-conceived experiment in cross-cultural understanding that began with the best intentions.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 6, 2008

The whole film could be seen a metaphor for America's misadventures in Iraq: Schreiber and company came in expecting flowers and sweets from a grateful native, and wound up in a quagmire.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 6, 2008

A ruefully funny cautionary tale about cross-cultural tone-deafness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 6, 2008

You can bet Nina Davenport didn't set out to make a documentary as bracingly honest as the one she ended up with.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 6, 2008

The film's parallels between Mohmed's travails and the Iraq war are forced, but overall this is a fascinating odyssey that never plays out in ways you would expect.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 6, 2008