It is clear Trapero went for the urgent, the instinctual, the power of the image. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 18, 2023

White Elephant is a great movie that follows the ideology of a director that, without becoming a sellout, makes movies within the margins of accessibility. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jul 31, 2023

The film embraces the idiom it invokes, becoming a burdensome film whose cost, time, and effort consuming it is definitely out of proportion to what the end result can deliver.

| Aug 5, 2019

With the help of two stand-out performances -- from both Darín and Renier -- White Elephant manages to engage and educate its audience in a heartfelt, if noisy, manner.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2019

Although it's an inherently truthful social drama, it contains just enough in-genre machinations to help it break out of any potentially preachy, didactic confine.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2019

The cinematography recalls the ground-breaking City Of God, from Brazil, but Trapero's film has a more spiritual element, being about the work of two priests trying to broker peace between warring drug cartels.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 31, 2017

Produced on a grand scale, this powerhouse of a movie recounts a true story with skill and artistry, highlighting an extremely volatile situation and the brave people who put themselves in the middle of it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 3, 2013

The material is familiar, but the milieu is vividly realised ...

| Apr 28, 2013

An old-fashioned but satisfying drama.

| Apr 26, 2013

The drama is intense but fractured as Trapero shows how millions of poverty-stricken people live in his home country, and how a few brave people attempt to do something about it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 26, 2013

[A] potent drama about the lawless slums of Buenos Aires - it feels like The Mission with all exoticism firmly excised.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2013

The film tries to do too much and its power is on a sliding scale downward, but at times it is ultra-vivid.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2013

A well constructed, genuinely thrilling drama about spiritual endurance and social commitment.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2013

A harrowing but overall enjoyable watch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 24, 2013

'White Elephant' throws us into the fray of an urban slum without in any way demonising or romanticising the theatre within which Trapero's meandering story unfolds.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 24, 2013

There's a lot to think about - sacrifice, faith, poverty and much more - but it all feels too crammed into its running time, and is delivered in an uninspiring fashion.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 22, 2013

Writer/director Trapero arguably crams too much into the film's running time, but potent turns and Michael Nyman's yearning score are among the compensations.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 17, 2013

[Trapero is] as thoughtful and perceptive a filmmaker as ever, using tools appropriate to the goal of drawing attention to systemic social ills.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 28, 2013

Trapero's film examines the real cost of a life of faith - the servanthood and the sacrifice - and is itself a long dark night of the soul, offering much to contemplate.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 22, 2013

Michael Nyman's sweepingly majestic score lends an epic dimension, which feels right alongside the straightforward passion depicted by an evenly balanced, top-drawer cast.

| May 22, 2012