[1] The film has Stone and his crew travel from the Caribbean down the spine of the Andes in an attempt to explain the "phenomenon" of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and account for the continent's "pink tide" leftward tilt.

"[2] In addition to Chávez, Stone sought to flesh out several other Latin American presidents whose policies and personalities generally get limited, or according to Stone, biased media attention in the United States and Europe, notably: Evo Morales of Bolivia; Cristina Kirchner and former president Néstor Kirchner of Argentina; Rafael Correa of Ecuador; Raúl Castro of Cuba; Fernando Lugo of Paraguay; and Lula da Silva of Brazil.

[1] The documentary examines the free-market economic policies of the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund, and how they have largely failed to alleviate Latin America's chronic income inequality.

The film suggests that financial calamities such as the Argentine peso collapse of 2001, combined with Latin suspicions of U.S. drug-eradication efforts and resentment over the selling off of natural resources through multinational companies, have contributed to the rise of socialist and social-democratic leaders across the region.

[10] The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film is "a rebuttal of what [Stone] views as the fulminations and lies of right-wing media at home and abroad regarding the socialist democracies of South America".

"[12]Variety said, "The docu (sic) offers little genuine information and no investigative research, adopting a style even more polemical than Stone’s earlier focus on Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat.

"[13] Reuters said Stone "deliver[ed] a strong endorsement of Chavez's socialist agenda, and question[ed] the tenets of what he calls U.S. 'predatory capitalism,'"[14] Bloomberg's journalist, Fabiola Moura described the film as "rosy in its picture", while being "a tonic dose of a perspective rarely seen in U.S. media coverage of the region",[15] and commented: The movie doesn’t mention Chavez’s blacklisting of millions of people who signed a petition seeking a recall vote against him in 2004; the persecution of political rivals; the creation of a new "Capital District" to usurp power from the opposition-led Caracas city government; and the refusal to renew the broadcasting license of Radio Caracas Television, the country’s oldest station.

In the end, the film tell us less about Latin America than it does about Oliver Stone, and his career-long quest to expose Washington's supposedly implacable hegemonic designs.

[21] Stone's rebuttal concludes with the statement: "It is not surprising that someone [Rohter] who supports the military overthrow of a democratically elected government would not like a documentary like this one, which celebrates the triumphs of electoral democracy in South America over the last decade.

In fact, the media's response to Oliver Stone's South of the Border, which I wrote with Tariq Ali, really completes a number of the film's arguments.

[28] The film was criticised by Leopoldo López, an opposition leader, for ignoring and not mentioning a number of very serious problems in Venezuela such as escalating crime, inflation, food scarcity, housing, and access to water and electricity which has worsened under Chavez's rule.

"[3] Tariq Ali who collaborated with Stone to make the film remarked that: "These changes that are taking place are not coming about through armed struggle or guerrilla warfare or Che Guevara.