''The Sentence'' is a 2018 American
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
directed by Rudy Valdez.
Synopsis
Filmmaker Rudy Valdez shows how his family is impacted when his sister is convicted and sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Release
Reception
The
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
reported an approval rating of , based on reviews.
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 69 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
writing for the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'' called the movie, "a personal and horrifying look at the effect of mandatory minimum prison sentences"
Dennis Harvey from the ''
Variety'' magazine said that the documentary was "earnest but flawed", stating: "The subject is inherently engrossing, but a better documentary could (and probably will) be made about it."
Dan Fienberg from ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly large ...
'' wrote: "''The Sentence'' is so committed to its concentration on emotion and heart that it's difficult not to get carried away, and it feels almost churlish to quibble with the intellectual responses it barely aspires to."
''The Sentence'' received several awards including a
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...
for
Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking in
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sentence, The
2018 films
2018 documentary films
Primetime Emmy Award-winning broadcasts
American documentary films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films