Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Writer-director Rodrigo Sepulveda suggests a personal explanation for her quest late in the game, but too late and too half-heartedly to rescue this morose Chilean drama from its own sanctimony.

Name : Nick Schager / Alias : Village Voice
Partisan's lack of interest in providing necessary context - especially about the ill-defined larger society that Gregori rejects - leaves it operating on a hazy psychological level.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Newcomer Jeremy Chabriel commands as 11-year-old Alexander, a chosen son whose dawning sense of right and wrong challenges the social order. An auspicious beginning, for him and Kleiman.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
Maddeningly vague.

Name : Mike D'Angelo / Alias : AV Club
Partisan is too obscure to appeal even to American arthouse crowds. It's too obscure and uneventful, ultimately, for its own good.

Name : Ben Kenigsberg / Alias : Variety
A pint-size killer gains a conscience in Ariel Kleiman's confidently told debut feature.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Conventional narrative detail is certainly not a requirement, and many directors can sustain a movie based on little more than suggestion and mood. But Partisan begins to feel like a short film treatment stretched beyond its limits.

Name : Leah Garchik / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Perhaps it's a date movie for sadists.

Name : Martin Tsai / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It's hard to tell if director and co-writer Ariel Kleiman is being serious or sarcastic with a story this preposterous.

Name : Tom Keogh / Alias : Seattle Times
Ambiguity proves the undoing of a potentially interesting story in "Partisan," the first feature by Australian filmmaker Ariel Kleiman.

Name : Helen T. Verongos / Alias : New York Times
Usually, partisans stand for something, but in this movie, which is stripped of a specific time frame and relevant geopolitical context, the term becomes hollow.