Bastards’ Road wins Audience Award for Documentary Feature at Slamdance Film Festival.
Shocked and sobbing: Slamdance documentaries are powerful and important
“I may not know much about documentaries, but I know good storytelling when I see it, and “Bastards’ Road” is an emotional masterpiece. The story comes together by centering on Jon’s physical trip and visits with his fellow Marines while constantly weaving in the rest of the pieces—Jon’s background in the military, his struggles with PTSD and suicide that led him to take the trip, information about veterans’ mental health struggles, and interviews with professionals and other 2/4 Marines and gold star families. The film is informative but highly personal, making statistics and concepts real by sharing the stories of individuals who are actually experiencing those realities. And while the entire film is 98 minutes of raw emotion, it also manages to balance that emotion, breaking up intense moments by interspersing breaks of gorgeous cinematography from Jon’s trip and comedic relief from Jon’s own charismatic personality.”
Santa Barbara International Film Festival - Bastards' Road Movie Review
“I’m no expert on documentaries about the unfortunately ever-irrelevant subject of veterans — their stories, homecomings, and internal pride and torments. But I have born witness to the best veteran doc in my experience, as of yesterday’s world premiere of Bastards’ Road. The screening, with gruffy articulate veterans advocate Jonathan Hancock in-house for a Q&A, may also qualify as this festival’s most tear-inducing film/event. We cried for the specifics of the film and it’s tough emotionality, we cried for this soldier’s face, and for the ceaseless specter of war.”