Critic Reviews

Porter's film is dramatic, unsettling, despairing, and in the end thrilling -- at some point, it grows from a portrait of this country's problems into a celebration of a possible solution.

Gideon’s Army is a bare film with no narrator and a minimal soundtrack. That’s all it needs to grab you by the throat.

Gideon’s Army is an eye-opening insight into a judicial hellhole world that ordinary citizens can never imagine.

Like the film itself, Porter’s handful of devoted, charismatic attorneys do a righteous job of reminding people that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, and that the criminal justice system seems otherwise disposed.

Gideon’s Army does what the best documentaries have always done: It makes us think about something we’d rather not.

Porter's film is not just a stirring testament to those taking on a Herculean task of bringing some sense of fairness and balance to an out of whack structure, but a reminder that there is still a far distance to go before everyone is equally represented in front of lady justice.

What Gideon's Army does is make a respectful case on the behalf of a profession that too often gets maligned.