Free Leonard Peltier

Joe Leydon of Variety wrote that "the good news of Peltier's pardon means his long nightmare is finally over. But 'Free Leonard Peltier' makes it very clear what a terrible injustice it has been for the serving of justice to have taken so much time. The final moments might make you smile, or maybe even weep. You'll still feel very angry, however."^[2]

For The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg wrote that "although the documentary includes no new interviews with Peltier, older interviews are used to complement new conversations with a number of the activists who were at Pine Ridge on the day of the shootout. There's footage from protests and events surrounding the shootout, but when that falls short, the filmmakers use what press notes describe as 'AI recreations.' I'll leave it for others to debate the ethics of the AI choice, but I'll say that the reenactments have no notable visual aesthetic and add very little information. It's a choice to fill space — little more."^[4]

Amber Wilkinson of Screen Daily wrote that "the injustice laid bare by this meticulously made and galvanising documentary runs much deeper than that faced by its subject, Leonard Peltier, an Amerian [sic] Indian Movemement (AIM) activist who was jailed in 1975 for the murder of two FBI agents during a shoot-out at Pine Ridge reservation in North Dakota. While Jesse Short Bull and David France’s film is firmly anchored in Peltier’s story, it also uses his experience as a springboard to highlight the oppression, institutional racism and abuse faced by Native Americans."^[5]