“Shot with the stark precision and chiaroscuro tones of a Michael Mann film, James Jones and Olivier Sarbil’s On The President’s Orders would be one of the most harrowing escapist thrillers of the year if it weren’t for the somber realisation that the horror captured is entirely, apocalyptically real.”

“A real life thriller”

“Masterful foray into the dark side of human behaviour.”

“Chilling, unflinching”

“Powerful, wrenching... visually arresting.”

“Cinematic with a capital C”

“In this grimly lurid, thriller-like documentary, filmmakers James Jones and Olivier Sarbil have open access to both police and their victims in a town where beat cops have been promoted into death squads.”

“It’s a wholly cinematic, sensory experience, with straight-ahead reportage electrified by glaring streetlights and a panicked urban wall of sound; it would make a handsome companion piece to Filipino auteur Brillante Mendoza’s recent “Alpha, the Right to Kill,” a fictionalised Duterte-era action film that aimed for grainy docu-realism as much as Jones and Sarbil’s film trades in more sleekly immersive atmospherics.

Production values here are so dazzlingly high that, for entire sequences at a time, riveted viewers may forget to wonder just how Jones and Sarbil managed to force a camera into the fray. Sarbil, a gifted cameraman who won a cinematography Emmy for his and Jones’s 2017 Frontline episode on Mosul, shoots the nighttime raids with a hot, athletic immediacy that the aforementioned Mendoza (or even Michael Mann) would covet in a fictional context; bodies are silhouetted in the glare of emergency lights, though amid the shadows, we also get close-up glimmers of strained faces on all sides of the law. The idea here is not to aestheticize a human rights crisis, but to show the absurd movie-logic shoot-’em-up that Duterte has allowed
the Philippines to become, right down to the “Fury Road”-style death’s-head masks worn by the executors. Populist politics can turn all too easily to popcorn ones; “On the President’s Orders” vividly captures the tipping point.”

“While Jones and Sarbil don’t skimp on the raw verité action, there’s a real artfulness to the film as they mix in beautifully composed imagery of Caloocan in order to stand in stark contrast to the everyday misery. *****”

“Shot like a Hollywood thriller, this visceral exposé lays bare the deadly heart of darkness behind Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte’s single-minded war on drugs.”

“Ghosts also haunt James Jones and Olivier Sarbil’s On the President’s Orders, a nail-biting investigative look at Philippines strongman Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly “war on drugs” through both its victims – the battle-scarred families of mostly low-level dealers and addicts rendered collateral damage – as well as, even more shockingly, its remorseless perpetrators.”

““On the President’s Orders” is a special documentary that doesn’t try to ask all the questions or provide any possible answers. It simply testifies to our dark age of cruelty and dehumanization. Like the great documentarian duo of the Ross brothers, Jones and Sarbil exhibit great empathy by simply watching and listening to people and places, rather than telling us what to think. And, in this instance, bearing witness to the monstrous policies of the Philippine President, who asks: “’Do not do drugs and kill our children because I will kill you.’ So, what is wrong with that statement?”

God help us if we don’t know the answer.”

“On the President’s Orders looks like a thriller from the likes of Michael Mann or Christopher Nolan, and it is just as gripping as Heat (1995) or Inception (2010). This is a slick and stylish documentary, with extraordinarily high production values. This is a documentary that is worthy of your complete attention and focus. You will become immersed in this world of drugs, crime, and corruption.
On the President’s Orders is a film that Hollywood should be envious of and a film that you should definitely seek out. *****”

“A powerful and disturbing documentary on the human cost of this senseless war, based on a crisis manufactured by a warped mind.”

“In this explosive cinematic investigation, directors James Jones and Olivier Sarbil get alarmingly close to the battle for the streets and soul of the Philippines. Their cameras stand before both sides — the victimised slum communities and the police squads blithely executing their countrymen from a perverse moral high ground. The staggering visions of violence, shot with a kinetic slickness and immediacy, are so electrifying that viewers will have to remind themselves: this is happening now, this is real.”

“A riveting account of the consequences of unfettered demagoguery.”

“One of the most heartbreaking, harrowing pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen. Beautifully and subtly told; damning in its indictments.”

“A shockingly alarming investigation produced with the sensibilities of a social realist drama, Sarbil and Jones’ nonfiction warning should petrify U.S. viewers immeasurably.”

“It feels closer to a fictional thriller like ‘City of God’, but James Jones and Olivier Sarbil’s film about Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” is compulsive viewing. Shot largely on the streets, the level of access is as impressive as the tale is harrowing.””

“This dystopian vision of a country where police murder anyone suspected of having a drug addiction would be horrifying enough as fiction, but in the Philippines, under Duterte, this is reality. In an atmospheric and chilling film, gun-toting officers with metallic skull-shaped face masks delight in their roles as assassins. ”

“Thrilling, filmic doc.”