"The first section of Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" comes to mind... this nonfiction portrait is an even purer distillation of famously brutal Marine training methods. While chapter intertitles obscurely hint at humor (while referencing the events we're about to see), Brumley otherwise maintains a strictly neutral, nonjudgmental p.o.v. Nonetheless, the wide-format images — by turns formally crisp and hand-held frenetic — as well as his tight editing vividly convey the confusion engendered by extreme discipline, and the intense emotions felt by the young recruits. Auds can, and no doubt will, read into the pic whatever political agenda they came in with."
— Dennis Harvey, Variety

"...the film distances the audience while simultaneously putting it in the same position as the recruits: not knowing what will happen next. Brumley captures the initial nervousness and anxiety of the trainees as they stumble through the gauntlet of technical instructors ready to verbally rip them apart at every gaffe. The milieu evokes Thomas E. Rick's book "Making the Corps" and the first half of Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, as the group gradually loses its gawkiness and prepares for war."
— Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times

"More violent than the first part of Full Metal Jacket, this vision of embrigadement, which passes by the constitution of a new hyper-paternalist family...is unforgettable...the director plunges us into the horror which leads to war, with very beautiful ideas of catch of sight...striking."
— Cinema Ecrans, France

"Brumley's wide-screen symmetrical shots evoke Stanley Kubrick's grandly cinematic style. [Utilizing] pure observational techniques, the film contains no interviews [and] calls to mind Frederick Wiseman's 1971 documentary "Basic Training." That recruits suffer unspeakable cafeteria food and sadistic drill sergeants shouting "Kill, kill, kill!" won't be a surprise to anyone who has watched "Full Metal Jacket." But 95 minutes of "Ears, Open" supplies a visceral experience of the reality of basic training that no other report quite matches."
— Thom Powers, The Boston Globe