Critics reviews

A minimalist, serenely offbeat comedy... Dorji’s use of first-time or inexperienced actors results in a mixed bag of performances, but not to any disruptive degree: The primary color in his mosaic is a casual, even proud naivete.

A droll political satire... In a place whose greatest aim is its population’s happiness, Dorji’s “The Monk and the Gun” contemplates whether complete modernization of his country is worth the price of this very happiness.

Modestly scaled, lightly comic and blithely ingratiating... [The Monk and the Gun is] a smooth piece of work with grand landscapes, nonprofessional actors, toothless politics and a story as contrived as just about anything you’d find at your local multiplex (or at Sundance).

[The Monk and the Gun] is funny and lighthearted, but delves into political forces and carries a slight undercurrent of danger... Most importantly, it gives director Pawo Choyning Dorji a chance to catalog the landscapes and ideas of his home as he deftly recounts where it was at a specific moment.

The widespread disinterest and confusion sowed by [the country's newborn democratic] system is when Dorji’s film is at its most engaging, but it largely just dangles plot threads it doesn’t care to analyze in greater detail... [The Monk and the Gun] may be perceived as more original within its native country, but internationally there’s a frustration for how it overlooks cultural specificities on the sidelines.

[The Monk and the Gun] shares the same wry spirit and gentle tension between tradition and modernity that characterized [Dorji's] heartwarming Oscar-nominated 2019 film, “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,” but with some added bite... It’s an unexpectedly suspenseful shaggy dog story, as well as a pretty funny one, with subtly pointed barbs about American politics.

[Dorji embraces] a mosaic-like approach to storytelling, with the narrative drifting freely between smaller tales that combine to provide a full picture of the community during this time of political upheaval... [The Monk and the Gun] pulls off something truly bold: taking what are perhaps the most emotionally and symbolically loaded items in existence and subverting their meaning completely to end on a note of peace, joy, and hope for the future.

Zoom out, and the film comes to represent a bigger-picture critique of how Western concepts — from mass-exporting toxic masculinity (via James Bond movies) to making “black water” (Coca-Cola) the global drink of choice — are corrupting life in this still-innocent outpost.

The Monk And The Gun is a freewheeling convergence of modernity and tradition, the urban and the rural... delightfully blending political satire and the Western genre... [and] brimming with ironic lines.

It’s exciting how the movie focuses on an entire time of a country, but “The Monk and the Gun” goes epic without having the finesse for its individual arcs... “The Monk and the Gun” creates a roster of good characters, including a family who is bullied for the father’s beliefs, but they distract from one another.

The fact that Dorji can tell this history lesson with such humor, tension and joy is a testament to his filmmaking prowess... Some say every story has been told, but this one feels unique, and I can’t imagine any other filmmaker taking it on.

By this point, it shouldn’t be even slightly tricky to see this as a simple film, like a tranquil monk with a friendly and harmless smile, but one that has the feel of a film school endeavor but shot with slightly better-working cameras, nevertheless.