This fictionalized account of John Reed's press coverage of and eventual participation in the Mexican Revolution explores the tenuous line that divides the detached objective observer from the committed man of action. Amos Vogel, in The Village Voice, noted: “Reed is a work of great subtlety. We enter, stage by stage, into the true realities of the Mexican revolution: its lulls and confusions, fallible leaders, unexpected death, sudden friendships, meandering half-action. This is what it must have been like. The sentiment is anti-convention, anti-folklore, anti-heroism; therefore, closer to revolutionary reality.” Paul Leduc's first major feature, Reed: Insurgent Mexico won the Georges Sadoul prize for best film by a new director.