Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
Amazon Studios | Release Date: July 13, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
UproxxVince ManciniJul 11, 2018
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot is a straightforward biopic about an interesting guy, starring one of our best actors. It’s a story of adversity, self-discovery, and redemption. It’s not the kind of story we’ve never seen, but it’s a perfect showcase for Gus Van Sant’s skill. Read full review
90
Film ThreatLorry KiktaFeb 19, 2019
It’s a delightful comedy about some of the darkest stuff we can go through as humans, which can only be pulled off by certain writers and directors. Gus Van Sant is definitely one of them. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 18, 2018
Yet it's really Phoenix that binds the whole piece together. In him, Callahan is self-piteous and sardonic, wildly inappropriate and desperate to please. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid HughesOct 22, 2018
Van Sant never strays far from the man-overcomes-disability genre, but this is more than made up for by some impressive directorial flourishes and an engaging central performance. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 12, 2018
Van Sant pays tribute to the restorative power of faith, discipline and perseverance, but he also resists the temptation to follow these themes into an overly pat or complacent groove. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJan 21, 2018
What makes Phoenix’s performance especially exciting is that you’re watching not just a character go from chaos to self-possession but an actor, too. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 20, 2018
Some will find it entirely too sentimental, others a tad repetitive (Callahan tends to repeat the same stories), but it’s hard to argue with a movie that celebrates the kind of recovery he went through. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 20, 2018
The movie radiates considerable compassion, sensitively addressing issues including addiction, recovery and forgiveness. Joaquin Phoenix’s raw, wiry performance never strives for greatness, which only makes it all the more affecting. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 20, 2018
In a terrific performance that encompasses countless attitudinal, emotional and physical shifts, Joaquin Phoenix eases into the lead role with equal parts raw pain, ironic humor and eventual mellow acceptance. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 3, 2018
Van Sant, a legendarily sensitive filmmaker, never fails to see the difficulties in Callahan’s journey, the spirit it takes to overcome them or the fact that they were all difficulties of the man’s own creation. That lifts this “uplifting” story above the twelve steps that are its natural starting point and into the realm of something more challenging than the genre conventions it otherwise adheres to. Read full review
75
Original-CinJim SlotekJul 19, 2018
Callahan, who died in 2010, understood the emotional venting behind his work and talked about it. As moving as it often is, we get a lot of the venting in Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot, but not enough of the work, or the man behind it. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 19, 2018
Van Sant has some fun with the briefly time-jumping narrative, but otherwise it’s shocking how little interest he seems to have in his subject. At least the director helps his star by filling out the supporting cast with performers who do their best to match Phoenix’s dedication, including a wonderful Jonah Hill as Callahan’s skeptical AA sponsor and Rooney Mara as the cartoonist’s off-and-on love interest. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshJul 19, 2018
It's Hill who proves once again he's much more than his comedic origins, crafting a compelling portrayal of the elusive Donnie that just about steals the whole movie. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJul 18, 2018
The cast is uniformly fine, although Rooney Mara is stuck playing a composite of various women that feels, well, like a composite of various women. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneFeb 20, 2018
The film is disarming for its sincerity, unalloyed in its positive thinking but unafraid of showing the gruesome details of alcoholism and denial to back up its bromides. Read full review
75
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodJan 20, 2018
Phoenix is almost otherworldly here. It’s his charismatic performance that often carries the film through its repetitive moments as he expertly takes Callahan on an emotional roller coaster filled with the highest highs and the lowest lows. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jan 20, 2018
The uplifting nature of this true story naturally triggers Van Sant’s pesky sentimentality, with scenes that recall the hug-it-out, therapeutic catharsis of Good Will Hunting. But this is still the writer-director’s most formally interesting, emotionally involving movie in a decade, however little that may really be saying. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 19, 2018
It could be a really showy role, but Phoenix is patient, letting the character, and the audience, come to him. It's a journey worth taking. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 12, 2018
Joaquin Phoenix and director Gus Van Sant raise the bar when they use roguish humor and bruising pain to color outside the box. Read full review
69
IGNWilliam BibbianiJul 12, 2018
Joaquin Phoenix gives an admirable performance as an interesting artist, whose life story otherwise gets the short shrift by this conventional drama with a frustratingly narrow focus. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyDana SchwartzJul 18, 2018
One imagines the real John Callahan, who died in 2010, would have appreciated a film that wasn’t afraid to call him an a—hole Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloJul 15, 2018
Ultimately, this is a movie to appreciate in isolated bits and pieces. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnJan 20, 2018
The movie falls short of deep insights, but its most prominent qualities — scrappy, ephemeral, a little bit lewd — mirror the chief attributes of Callahan’s endearing work. Read full review
65
Paste MagazineOktay Ege Kozak Aug 1, 2018
Gus Van Sant’s film certainly captures how Callahan used whimsy as a defense mechanism against seemingly insurmountable real-life conflict, but Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot captures little of how Callahan’s art was such a vital part of that whimsy. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJul 18, 2018
“Don’t Worry” is not a conventional biopic. That makes sense — Callahan sure isn’t a conventional biopic subject — but that unconventionality can present problems. Sometimes the movie is sentimental. More often, it’s scabrous. Maybe if the movie didn’t feel overlong (trim and tight it’s not), those qualities might seem better balanced. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartJul 13, 2018
As an addiction memoir, it works well enough; there are a handful of deeply felt moments. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaJul 13, 2018
As movies about misanthropic outsider artists with medical issues go, “Don’t Worry” doesn’t come close to the superb “American Splendor” with Paul Giamatti as the irascible Harvey Pekar. Read full review
63
The Associated PressLindsey BahrJul 11, 2018
There are quite a few good pieces and performances in Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, but, ultimately, it also has the feeling of a first or second draft that isn’t quite where it should be. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJul 26, 2018
Like the work of Callahan, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot is dark, it is irreverent, it is often willfully offensive. But there's also an admirable frankness at work there, an honestly that helps keep things rolling forward -- even when its own wheels occasionally get stuck in the sand. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 16, 2018
Why, then, does the pulse of the narrative falter in the second half? Mainly because Van Sant has covered so much ground in the first, and there isn’t a great deal left to recount. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJul 12, 2018
Self-pitying or smug, jaunty or crestfallen, callous or contrite, the movie’s fitful tone is fully yoked to Joaquin Phoenix’s sodden-to-sober lead performance. Read full review
60
Village VoiceKristen Yoonsoo KimJul 11, 2018
If there’s one thing that Van Sant does very well here, it’s creating a humanizing anchor at the center of the story. Despite some distracting narrative choices and sketchy character development (especially with Mara’s character, who, of course, turns into a love interest), the film does eventually find its footing. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 21, 2018
It’s unlikely to change anyone’s life, exactly, but it’s genial, funny, and invigorating. Read full review
58
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 20, 2018
John Callahan’s life is a fascinatingly complex one, and Phoenix is certainly the ideal actor to portray him, but Gus Van Sant’s maudlin, erratic approach leaves too little of an impression. Read full review
50
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJul 19, 2018
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot is an incredibly mixed bag, a complicated story told with an approach that would have made more sense as a follow-up to Good Will Hunting in the ‘90s. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 18, 2018
Something about Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot keeps it from adding up to a satisfying movie experience. It has the feeling, rather, of a story you might hear about a friend of friend. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 18, 2018
Uplift winds up getting the better of “Don’t Worry,” in which Phoenix delivers an impressively committed performance that nonetheless can’t overcome the movie’s worship of Callahan’s most immature, solipsistic and self-dramatizing foibles. A movie that’s supposed to inspire winds up being irritating instead. Read full review
50
Film Journal InternationalTomris LafflyJul 11, 2018
Despite committed performances across the board, I left the film craving a deeper, more conventionally attentive character study. Read full review
40
The GuardianJordan HoffmanJan 20, 2018
There are plenty of great moments, but they jump out amid a jumble of strangely flat scenes. This doesn’t feel like the work of a great master; it’s a discordant brew that just doesn’t blend right. Read full review
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