Critics reviews

Stephen Maing might just be the next Laura Poitras. . . . Like Poitras (and Foucault, though he’s much more pessimistic), Maing is an expansive, systems and structures thinker. The big question here is: What does it mean to be a public servant and an active citizen pursuing political agency?

The result is a powerful and suspenseful film, part detective story and part courtroom drama, fueled by a potent mix of curiosity and indignation and full of memorable characters speaking in the lively idioms and varied accents of New York.

Maing does good longform work tracking his large cast over four years. (Big shout-out for using drone shots in a non-hacky way, in sustained shots that cast an ominous spell rather than drifting purposelessly to bridge two segments, the current equivalent of sitcom establishing shots.)

Maing (who acts as his own cinematographer) appears to have had unprecedented, fly-on-the-wall access to the group, and he compellingly details how their decision to speak truth to power has its soul-sapping consequences.