Best movie of this year hands down!

Really Surprised!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I loved Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness and I loved Apocalypse Now, so it shouldn't be at all surprising that I loved Men With Guns. Like Apocalpyse, Sayles also uses humor to provide needed contrast and relief from what would otherwise be a very depressing story. As directed, the movie is sobering and quite funny at the same time, the characters are very interesting, and the overall effect is highly entertaining.

Men with Guns is one of the finest films of the genre. It has legs- really stays with you, for years. The priest's story alone is brilliant filmmaking. I've been a great fan of John Sayles' work for many years, but I think this is both his most original and generally best work. The shame is that no one seems to have seen this film. I saw it 3X in theatres and there were never more than 5 people in the audience. MWG doesn't appeal to the short- attention-spaned sex-and-violence cravers. The history of 30 years of terrible civil war as close as Guatemala is something our children remain ignorant about. This incredible film puts that war into unique perspective. Sayles didn't seem to care if too many people saw it or not- subtitles alone guarantee a fringe audience confined to a few art houses. The film is not perfect- editing could be a little better; but what a story! The opening and closing scenes really work for me. I hope everyone reading these comments will go out and rent Men with Guns ASAP. Sayles at his best.

Dreamlike, mythological, multilayered and almost mystical on the one hand, and on the other hand, vividly conveying the reality of Guatemala in the 1980s (which is what the film's story is mostly based on, though it draws in part from the present-day situation in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas, where it was mostly filmed; I think that the Indian language we were hearing was Tzotzil Maya). This film is as understated as its blunt, simple title (by the way, all violence happens offscreen). And yet it is so multilayered that I am still trying to absorb its many levels. It is a "road movie," and it is a profound spiritual odyssey for the main character; it is a suspenseful and unpredictable thriller full of unexpected twists, and it is mythic... in fact, we gradually come to realize that the entire story is being told, like a traditional myth, by a Mayan mother to her little girl. A beautiful example of the Latin American "magical realism" style. This film gets an unhesitating score of 10 from me... in fact, I think I may consider this film among my lifetime top ten movies.

A fascinating story of a doctor who travels through an unnamed South American country in the midst of rebellion, seeking former students, only to find them dead or missing. Sayles is an amazing story teller. He takes a ragtag band of fairly unlikeable people and forces you to fall in love with them. I only wish the film didn't have to have a point. It kinda gets in the way of simply enjoying the atmosphere and characters he's set up.