Joe Bell
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: July 23, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
12
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
The Film StageJared MobarakSep 20, 2020
The entirety of Good Joe Bell is an awakening not for those who actively harm at-risk youth like Jadin, but those who don’t realize the implicit harm they’re supplying by centering allyship on themselves rather than those they’re supporting. Read full review
83
IndieWireKate ErblandSep 20, 2020
While formulaic on its face, Green’s film resists the sort of obvious cinematic catharsis expected of such a story, resulting in a final product that earns its emotional beats. Read full review
80
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 20, 2020
Good Joe Bell is a generous film about an outsider travelling across the country realising the importance of listening and learning from others (as well as his own guilty conscience). Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 15, 2020
Green's grasp of this tender, family-focused story shows equal restraint and compassion, and mastery of a tricky structure. Read full review
70
TheWrapSteve PondSep 20, 2020
An open-hearted, unapologetically emotional story of a man struggling to come to terms with what happened to his son and with his own complicity in it, “Good Joe Bell” makes good use of the Everyman appeal of Mark Wahlberg; if it doesn’t feel like a landmark the way Ossana and McMurtry’s “Brokeback Mountain” or McMurtry’s “The Last Picture Show” and “Terms of Endearment” were, it’s a quietly affecting road trip that gets to where it wants to go and may prompt a few tears along the way. Read full review
70
UproxxMike RyanSep 20, 2020
What’s remarkable about Good Joe Bell is Wahlberg plays the role in such a nuanced way, by the end of the movie you want that rousing speech. But it never comes. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 20, 2020
Good Joe Bell could have been schmaltzy, simplistic, too hungry for uplift. Green, though—and McMurtry and Ossana and, gulp, Wahlberg—keep the film in check. They don’t lose sight of what is really being spoken about here. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJul 23, 2021
It's frustrating to watch a movie that seems so unable to get out of its own way—all the more so because this is one of the last collaborations between the Oscar-winning screenwriting team of Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshJul 22, 2021
Joe Bell is a tale of emotional redemption for a man who relearns what it means to “be a man,” and his moments of triumph are the quietest ones. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJul 21, 2021
The movie’s heart is completely in the right place, which, frankly, can make it a bit of a chore to watch. Moral righteousness makes the world a better place, but filmic it’s not. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 20, 2021
Joe Bell never quite packs the dramatic punch the real-life story deserves. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsJul 29, 2021
For Joe Bell to largely be a tale of one man’s inner journey rather than a dive into the unknowns of his son’s inner life and eventual tragedy is not out of turn. It is a worthwhile story to tell. The flaw is not in assigning gravity to Joe’s journey. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJul 24, 2021
The problem with Joe Bell isn’t that it’s telling Joe’s story; that’s an important (and tragic) tale that should be told. The problem is that it fails to also tell Jadin’s story — even after it makes the point that Jadin’s journey is inextricable from Joe’s. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 20, 2020
Wahlberg, delivering a performance that feels like community service, just isn’t up to driving a drama whose conflict is almost entirely internal; his default setting of sneering irritation is the wrong tool for the job. It leaves you wondering if this should have more fully been Jadin’s story, especially given the sensitivity of Miller’s turn. Read full review
55
SlashfilmMarshall ShafferSep 20, 2020
Green’s humanistic stamp is evident when Wahlberg expresses a soulful sentiment or denunciation of narrow-minded thinking, yet there’s little for any director to do when faced with such an untidy script. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 23, 2021
Joe Bell is a well-meaning film with a gripping story it can’t quite figure out how to tell. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 23, 2021
There’s a good movie in the story of Joe Bell and Jadin Bell. The good one struggles to emerge from the good try we have here. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 20, 2021
It’s a flat, forlorn movie with occasional sparks of life. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedJul 19, 2021
It’s still worth seeing, mainly for the depth and feeling Mark Wahlberg exhibits in the title role, but fails to expand a viewer’s vision and understanding of an otherwise hot-button topic beyond a superficial surface. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 20, 2020
Because Good Joe Bell spends so much time wondering how this father will change and grow, it doesn’t concentrate enough on his son, who is actually experiencing the bullying. Read full review
42
The PlaylistRobert DanielsSep 20, 2020
A brisk film that could do with twenty more minutes, Green’s “Good Joe Bell” has its heart in the right place, but the limited gaze the writers and director offer withholds this redemptive tale from being the uplifting critique of homophobia and bullying that it needs to be. Read full review
40
Screen RantSarah Bea MilnerJul 23, 2021
Although there is much to love in the picture, and the subject matter is a topic that needs to be part of the public discourse, the film's many faults distract from the compelling people and events that Joe Bell is trying to honor. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJul 22, 2021
For all its hot button, au courant moral messaging, Joe Bell is preaching to the converted and unlikely to draw in the type of audience that actually needs to hear its pleas for kindness in a mean and wild world. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 20, 2021
Although Miller is excellent as the doomed teen, Wahlberg seems out of his league here, except in the actor’s rendering of Joe’s acute discomfort with public speaking and confrontation — which is odd in a movie that wears its heart, and its lessons, on its sleeve. Read full review
30
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 15, 2020
A movie like this would be a good start, if this were 1980. A decade and a half after “Brokeback Mountain,” however, it feels like a huge step backward. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineJake ColeJul 19, 2021
The tired, tasteless gimmick at the center of the film inadvertently reveals its entire problem of perspective. Read full review
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