Writer/director Jessica Yu plays with the dramatic form itself in this experimental doc with a kinky cast that includes an "ex-gay" evangelist.

| May 20, 2020

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 18, 2011

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

Many will be moved by Protagonist and its reminders that we are all struggling to find versions of ourselves to live up to.

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

[Jessica Yu] combines the interviews with such skill that themes begin to emerge, a tangled thicket of men seeking to define themselves through strength, discipline and self-transformation.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 9, 2008

Truly artistic documentary about 4 men who led life at the edge and came back from the brink.

| Apr 22, 2008

fascinating, troubling, and scathingly brilliant in both concept and execution

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 11, 2008

... far more thought-provoking and engrossing than the usual run of flatly journalistic docs.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2007

At first, the technique seems gimmicky, but finally it's as compelling a perspective as any to understand how these men passed through agony to some sort of peace.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 14, 2007

Yu's film may be challenging to synopsize, but it's thoroughly engrossing and wildly surprising.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 14, 2007

Perhaps Yu's greatest achievement was finding four individuals with equal passion about and insight into their own journeys, and thereby demonstrating that all lives are fascinating when properly examined.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 14, 2007

Stepped up in edginess from the Errol Morris template, Yu's Greek tragedy of modern extremists weaves four disturbing stories into a cautionary tale in step with the times

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 7, 2007

It's a particularly elegantly made film, with sharp lensing by cinematographers Russell Harper and Karl Hahn.

| Dec 4, 2007

Suffers for the same reasons that a lot of 'issue' documentaries are problematic -- it is way too heavy-handed, only in style and concept rather than preachiness.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 30, 2007

None of the talking heads is as interesting as [director] Yu thinks they are; and it's difficult to build sympathy for any of them.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Nov 30, 2007

While [director] Yu's experimental approach brings valuable insight to the human condition, the interviews themselves too rarely measure up to her ambitious structure.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 30, 2007

...an audacious and remarkably assured documentary that weaves together four seemingly unrelated portraits of four contemporary men whose very different lives follow the course of Euripidean drama.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 30, 2007

Protagonist is an enthralling documentary exploration of people with obsessive needs for control and self-mastery.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 30, 2007

Proves so savvy at connecting the hidden dots between eclectic subjects that even the puppets seem human.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 29, 2007

The film bears the mark of a real directorial talent, eager to push the documentary form in inventive directions, just like Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, and for that alone, it deserves a nod of appreciation.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Nov 29, 2007