Variety's review of "Mr Nelson, Did You Kill People?" delivers a harsh verdict on Shinya Tsukamoto's Vietnam War drama, calling it an "assaultive yet turgid" and outdated take on PTSD. The film, based on the memoir of real-life Marine Allen Nelson, follows a Black veteran haunted by the atrocities he witnessed and committed, but the critic argues it offers little fresh insight nearly six decades after the war ended, relying instead on repeated graphic flashbacks rather than genuine psychological or racial exploration.

The story centres on Nelson, played by Mark Merphy as a young man and Rodney Hicks in later years, as he struggles with severe shellshock, homelessness and a fractured family life before eventually entering therapy with a character played by Geoffrey Rush. The review criticises the film for using its therapy-session framing merely as a pretext for grisly war violence, for underwriting supporting characters such as Nelson's wife (Tatyana Ali), and for having only a "cursory" interest in the war's specific impact on the African-American community, despite Tsukamoto's outsider perspective as a Japanese director.