“Director Jennifer Jessum’s Holy Man: The USA vs. Douglas White illustrates complex issues through the story of an individual. White—a revered medicine man on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota—is falsely accused of child molestation, and even when mountains of evidence attest to his innocence, the court system refuses to release him. Narrated by Martin Sheen, the film puts White’s legal battle in the context of historical and ongoing racism against Native Americans that has resulted in legacies of poverty, alcoholism, and the highest suicide rate in the country. It’s engrossing but infuriating viewing, and when a white government worker says point-blank, ‘The federal judicial system and all its accoutrements are on the backs of the Indians,’ it’s impossible to argue otherwise.”

The Village Voice