Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
A classic example of a documentary that discovers its subject in the process of its making.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
If John Steinbeck were writing in the second decade of the 21st century, "The Overnighters" is precisely the story he'd want to tell.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
[A] tough-minded, admirably unresolved film .

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
The movie might seem like just another liberal do-gooder profile, yet a shocker ending throws new and disturbing light on the situation, amplifying the Christian themes at the heart of the story.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
"The Overnighters" is commendable for many reasons, not the least of which is the way it allows complex issues to remain complex. There is a clear conflict between the pastor and the town, but there's no good vs. evil.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Through patience, skill, discretion, and trust, Jesse Moss has taken a seemingly small town story and turned it into both a microcosm of today's most urgent issues and a portrait of a single suffering soul.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
Moss uses images of drill towers or blistering flame as visual metaphors for other things transpiring on screen: the fracturing of a family, the heated fury that comes with a sense of betrayal.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A scenario with present-day echoes of "The Grapes of Wrath" yields perceptive insights into the way we view outsiders.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
The film features stunning third-act revelations that compel viewers to rethink its characters' actions and motivations.

Name : Jeannette Catsoulis / Alias : New York Times
Composed of multiple layers - more than one of which might bring tears to your eyes - this shape-shifting documentary begins as one thing and ends as quite another.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
A sobering must-see, The Overnighters speaks to the eternal dilemma of doing the right thing in a community beset by suspicion and fear.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
So much of "The Overnighters" tells all sorts of truths, and Moss earned the trust of his subjects, whatever they might think of the result.

Name : Trevor Johnston / Alias : Time Out
An urgent portrait of compassion under fire.

Name : David Lewis / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Moss was basically a one-man production crew, which explains how he was able to film such intimate, painful conversations. His work is haunting - one of the best documentaries of the year.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Moss uncovers something greater than a vision of a divided community; he's made a drama as prickly and surprising as any fictional character study.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Filmmaker Jesse Moss frames his shots beautifully; the landscapes look like Andrew Wyeth paintings.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
It develops into a study of obsession, hypocrisy, righteousness and self-doubt, questioning motive and then gob-smacking the audience with the wholly unexpected.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
The Overnighters sounds like the sort of dry news blurb you'd skim over in the Sunday paper, but it unfolds into an epic tragedy.

Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It's the rare documentary in which truly unpredictable events unfold and no assumption is safe.

Name : Variety Staff / Alias : Variety
An enchanting and humane fable.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
When critics bemoan the dumbing down of movies, they're talking about stuff like The Purge.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
There's nothing you'd want to see again, particularly served up with all these shaky closeups and off-kilter angles and a cast mostly waiting - like us - for it to be over.

Name : Simon Abrams / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Instead of being a creepy B-movie about the necessity of suppressing one's animalistic urges, "The Purge" is just a product of uninspired filmmaking.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Somewhere between Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and the "Family Guy" episode in which Peter Griffin joins the Tea Party lies "The Purge." Unfortunately, it's as funny as the former and as thoughtful as the latter.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The Purge clearly has a lot on its mind, but it never really manages to express it.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
You hope for a purge to wipe away bad movies like this.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
In its own clumsy, exaggerated way, The Purge takes a strong stand against our cultural obsession with violence and our tendency to conflate justice with vengeance.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
The film morphs into a dull version of Straw Dogs .

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
No real answers are provided by writer-director James DeMonaco. He simply presents this bizarre dystopian future, and the audience is left to take it or leave it.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
The set-up is arresting, the domestic scenes well observed and acted, and the payoffs involving that Roomba toy excellent. Also, a late-film twist isn't a surprise, exactly, but it is delicious.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
A nutty if bloody lark, with a strange artificiality to the behaviors it portrays. That blunts the sharpness of any cultural critique it might aspire to.

Name : Michael Sragow / Alias : Orange County Register
Writer-director James DeMonaco's The Purge fritters away its promise in lurid, frenzied violence.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
The Purge suffers from BioShock Syndrome: Its survive-at-all-costs plot and anti-libertarian slant are incompatible.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
The message just gets louder and louder, cruder and cruder, which is too bad because Mr. DeMonaco knows how to set a stage.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : Hearst Newspapers
The blunt instrument plot allows for a few sneaky moments of satire and social commentary lite.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A routine home invasion movie more interested in B-horror tropes and bloodletting than a thought-provoking look at "Hunger Games"-ish class warfare.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Too bad the film devolves into a series of home-invasion cliches. The Purge was almost on to something.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
The vague posters for "The Purge" won't prepare you for how sharp and shockingly subversive this home-invasion flick can be.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
The film has some vague things to say about class and racial differences, but they are drowned out by the sounds of blasting shotguns and huge knives being plunged into chests.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
The Purge is not subtle. But why should it be? It's not a movie about class or morality, but about the need for violence - our own. We are the audience, after all, and we must be purged, too.

Name : Nigel Floyd / Alias : Time Out
The film's would-be subversive ideas about the kneejerk appeal of social violence get lost in the mix.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
It's cultural commentary as blunt instrument - and as blunt instruments are wont to do, it achieves an end while making a bloody mess.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Variety
That old horror-movie standard, a homestead besieged by psychos, gets remixed with a bit of Occupy-era class-conflict satire in the disappointing future-set thriller The Purge.

Name : Rick Groen / Alias : Globe and Mail
Fans, gear up for rock-em-sock-em action, yet don't be disappointed if much of the goonery seems a bit tepid and, dare I say, staged.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Audiences will feel the need for a good cleansing after experiencing The Purge.

Name : Matt Patches / Alias : Film.com
A blunt takedown of 1%-er politics masquerading as a home invasion picture.

Name : Neil Young / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Gimmicky chiller lacks the robustness and distinction needed to support its social-commentary ambitions.

Name : David Thomson / Alias : The New Republic
If The Purge is as far-sighted as Network proved to be, we are in for very ugly times.

Name : Kristin Tillotson / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Its premise requires more sophisticated layering for the audience to really get on board with the notion that people leading very comfortable lives will suddenly go on a murder bender just because they can.

Name : Kevin C. Johnson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The great premise in "The Purge" - and it is a great premise, while being no "Hunger Games" - is squandered on a few levels.

Name : Kerry Lengel / Alias : Arizona Republic
"The Purge" is one of those unimaginative horror flicks that depend on skreeky music and sudden appearances to startle, but never actually frighten, the audience.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
DeMonaco clearly hopes to make a significant moral statement on the level of Shirley Jackson's literary masterpiece The Lottery. Alas, his aim at political conservatives who support the gun lobby falls flat before he can pull the trigger.

Name : Ian Buckwalter / Alias : NPR
The Purge is mostly a genre picture trying to layer on some prestige by way of social commentary. The latter falls flat; the film is actually stronger when it just goes for our baser instincts.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
After a wickedly promising start, this pointed political satire quickly deteriorates into a fairly routine, if sporadically quite effective, home-invasion thriller.