REVIEWS & QUOTES
"American Radical is a powerful film - brave, bold, incendiary. I highly recommend it!"
MICHAEL MOORE, award-winning filmmaker
"Surprisingly entertaining...a compelling portrait of a difficult man."
MARK COHEN, The Jewish Daily Forward
"A revealing and nuanced documentary...deserves to be seen widely as a fascinating introduction to the man and his views."
"An incredibly powerful portrait."
The Frontline Club, London
"...one of the most talked-about documentary of the last months, a fascinating portrait that confidently walks that tightrope known as balance."
The Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival
"American Radical is a nuanced and powerful portrait of the scholar Norman Finkelstien, one of the nation's most courageous and embattled intellectuals. It is a reminder that mendacity and timidity, when in the service of conventional beliefs, are more highly prized in most universities than truth. It illustrates that those who unmask the lies of the intellectual elite swiftly become their victims. The power and subtext of this film, however, is not in the wars fought between Finkelstien and those like Alan Dershowitz who seek to destroy him, but in Finkelstein's powerful fealty to his mother's suffering in the Warsaw Ghetto and later the Nazi death camps. Finkelstein sees in all who are oppressed his mother's degradation and pain. This is a movie that is, at its core, about the unshakable bond of love between a parent and a true and faithful son who refuses to forget or compromise."
CHRIS HEDGES, former New York Times Mid-East correspondent, author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
"American Radical is a well-done, intimate documentary"
ELIZABETH COFFMAN, Inside Higher Education
"The filmmakers present a very balanced look at a somewhat unbalanced character. Finkelstein’s polarizing politics will inflame some viewers, validate others and intrigue everyone."
JUDY MARX, The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
"A fascinating, well-rounded portrait of Finkelstein that simultaneously informs, inspires, and infuriates...the filmmakers ride a delicate line, assembling a warts-and-all portrait that shows why Finkelstein is deeply respected and equally reviled."
MARK ACHBAR, award-winning director of The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
"This deeply researched, probing film transcends politics and sociology: it's a profoundly humanistic document about the roots and consequences of speaking your mind."
SAUL RUBINEK, Canadian actor and director
"A well-balanced portrait...the doc is full of chutzpah and thought-provoking ideas."
MEG HEWINGS, The Hour
"Intimate and revealing."
The Miami Herald
"American Radical delivers a high-octane dose of the most controversial man in America!”
MICHELLE FOX, San Francisco Weekly
"A powerful portrait."
The Montreal Gazette
"American Radical is one of those rare great docs because its power comes from the unavoidable notion that we are taking one more step closer to the truth.”
Sheffield Doc/Fest
"...there are few such films as explosive and gripping as American Radical."
gapersblock.com
"A guaranteed argument starter...an engaging portait of an academic whose work is both fueled and undermined by his vitriolic personality."
J. R. JONES, The Chicago Reader
"Given the tone of uncompromising adulation that can underlie such profiles, audiences may be surprised at how frank this portrait of Finkelstein is.”
JIM QUILTY, The Daily Star (Lebanon)
"Powerful work...This is a film that shines because it dares to articulate the key issues within the Jewish Diaspora."
ANTHONY LOEWENSTEIN, author of My Israel Question
"While this tenure-challenged Middle Eastern studies professor is hardly pleasant cinematic company, it's tough to look away.”
GARY GOLDSTEIN, The Los Angeles Times
"David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier's documentary on Norman Finkelstein...promises to prove as controversial as the man himself.”
RONNIE SCHELB, Variety
"American Radical will stimulate discussion about one of the day's most important issues. Surely the sign of a significant film."
PETER KEOUGH, The Boston Phoenix
“...there is much to make any fair minded observer stop and think. The filmmakers achieve this by largely sidestepping the content of Finkelstein's views and focusing on the man why he is the way he is."
BEN HARRIS, JTA
"American Radical is a cautiously respectful documentary portrait of a political firebrand who presents himself as a beacon of moral truth in the murk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
STEPHEN HOLDEN, The New York Times
"...fascinatingly thorny."
JOSHUA ROTHKOPF, Time Out NY
"American Radical…presents a more balanced portrait of Finkelstein."
GEORGE ROBINSON, The Jewish Week
"A valuable introduction to Finkelstein's complex ideas"
New York Magazine
"A blood-boiling, very good documentary."
MARK KEIZER, Boxoffice Magazine
"A compelling psychological portrait."
BENJAMIN MERCER, The L Magazine
"A well-balanced, important and timely documentary that's provocative and eye-opening regardless of whether or not you agree with Finkelstein's controversial arguments."
AVI OFFER, The NYC Movie Guru