[1][2] The idea for the movie stated in 2009 when, during the premiere of Zamora: Tierra y hombres libres, President Hugo Chávez suggested to make a film about Cipriano Castro to Chalbaud and Luis Britto García, both of which had worked in the film as director and screenwriter, respectively.

[3] Venezuelan film critic Sergio Monsalve said that the movie, along with Chalbaud's late work El Caracazo, Días de poder and Zamora: Tierra y hombres libres, tarnished Chalbaud's career and accomplishments as a filmmaker, saying that they were produced to please the Bolivarian Revolution and the ruling party, and panned the film.

[4][5] Writing for Revista Florencia, Crissia Contreras criticized several aspects of the film, particularly its script and visual effects.

Contreras writes that Cipriano Castro's and Juan Vicente Gómez' dialogues lacked depth and that Britto fails to depicts them faithfully, something particularly troublesome being two of the most important characters in Venezuelan history: Castro, leader of the Liberal Restorative Revolution [es], and his compadre Gómez, who would rule Venezuela for 27 years and described by writer Francisco Herrera Luque as the founder of the modern Venezuelan state.

Crissia also stated that the movie's special effects were bad, suggesting that the country's film production was far from acceptable standards, and that extras, and even main actors, failed to depict fundamental aspects of the Liberal Restorative army, such as the Andean accents.