Critic Reviews

Ressa’s seemingly boundless energy, good humor and intelligence make her basically a power plant for the manufacture of inspiration in embattled times.

Diaz stays out of the way of her own lens, instead giving a portrait in context of Ressa's valiant struggle for truth, and her determination to simply do the job even as she becomes part of the story.

Diaz displays a remarkable skill with editing hours of footage about a complex issue into a tight piece of non-fiction filmmaking that makes its point often merely by bearing witness to history being made in the Philippines.

The film is an essential character-driven document of a moment in the history of a country facing some challenges that are disturbingly familiar and others, thank goodness, that Americans will find very foreign.

While it would be impossible to end A Thousand Cuts on a positive note, Diaz holds fast on her subject and Ressa’s determination to fight for what she believes in. This lights a path towards hope and the belief that truth and justice will ultimately prevail in a climate where lies spread faster than facts.

The movie is loaded with moments meant to generate shock and outrage, but it could use more shoe-leather procedural scenes, showing in detail how Ressa’s team goes about investigating the police’s abuses of their constitutional authority.

The film uses endangered press freedom in the Philippines to illustrate the threat posed to liberal democracy by weaponized social media.

As the film focuses more tightly on [Ressa], it becomes a more gripping document. And it certainly is gripping, as the cloud of menace threatening her becomes firmer.