Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn
HBO Documentary Films | Release Date: October 5, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
RogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmJun 18, 2020
Monsters like Cohn are created by a nation that judges its people based on the level of their clout rather than the content of their character. Cohn embodies the primal urge to succeed at all costs, and the first step toward defeating him is to root him out in ourselves. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesMichael OrdoñaJul 14, 2020
What emerges is a chilling portrait of what happens when people in power just ignore sociopolitical norms and behave as though the rules don’t apply to them. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyJun 18, 2020
Objectivity is not Meeropol’s goal here but better understanding of who this slippery character is, and this film succeeds in that. Read full review
75
CNNBrian LowryJun 18, 2020
What sets Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn apart is the personal connection for director Ivy Meeropol, the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Read full review
75
The PlaylistAndrew CrumpJun 17, 2020
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn isn’t really about justice, per se, but about peeling back the layers on the man. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonJun 17, 2020
Anyone expecting some kind of righteously indignant, stentorian rant from Ms. Meeropol will be disappointed. In fact, she does something far more surgical: She makes Cohn ridiculous. She makes him close to an object of pity. He would have hated nothing more. Call it revenge by pathos. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanOct 8, 2019
Bully. Coward. Victim. isn’t as authoritative a chronicle as “Where’s My Roy Cohn?,” but in its loosely anecdotal way it may bring us a notch or two closer to who Roy Cohn was. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergJun 18, 2020
Long stretches are not a personal reckoning but an overview; many details overlap with “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” from last year, although the clips here are at least as good. It is also more sympathetic to Cohn than either Cohn’s reputation or the familial animosity would suggest. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckOct 6, 2019
While that personal connection lends an undeniably poignant aspect, the film never quite fully captures the essence of the enigmatic legal and political fixer. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerJun 17, 2020
The second recent documentary focused on Roy Cohn, Bully. Coward. Victim.: The Story Of Roy Cohn is as stuffed and jumbled as its title’s punctuation. Despite this, the film manages to inject some genuine personality into its Wiki reckoning of Cohn’s cursed résumé. Read full review
40
TheWrapDan CallahanOct 6, 2019
The structure here is haphazard, to say the least, and there is a serious lack of concentration and follow-through. Too much ground is covered too quickly, and often confusingly. Read full review
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