LUV
Indomina Releasing | Release Date: January 18, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
14
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Film.comStephanie ZacharekFeb 26, 2013
LUV is partly a story about drugs, guns and street crime, the legacies we pass on to our children despite our efforts to do otherwise. But it’s also about the things we pass on to our children with love: How to tie a necktie, hold a steering wheel, shake another person’s hand. And it’s about the hope that those things will win out in the end. Read full review
75
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeJan 17, 2013
Candis gets some wonderful performances from his impressive cast. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJan 17, 2013
The big names in the cast add atmosphere in small doses, especially when Haysbert and Glover combine. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJan 16, 2013
Here is a film about African Americans that sidesteps all the usual, hopeful cliches and comments on how one failed generation raises another. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 17, 2013
An uneven but strongly acted debut feature from co-writer and director Sheldon Candis. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundJan 14, 2013
As a film that largely works as a subdued twist on the familiar drama about crime and family, LUV needed more intimacy and focus. Read full review
60
NPRJoel ArnoldJan 18, 2013
So it's nice that, despite some cliched rhythms, the flawed-ex-con-makes-good drama LUV gets the details of childhood-cut-short heartbreakingly right. Read full review
60
SalonAndrew O'HehirJan 17, 2013
Both for good and for ill, LUV has a film-school feeling about it, and channels a legacy of fatalistic American crime cinema that includes "Mean Streets" and "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJan 17, 2013
It does not entirely succeed, but at its best Luv shows the kind of heart and intelligence that is always welcome - and often missing - in American movies. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJan 17, 2013
What begins as a promising peek into the tragic cycle of waylaid promise that's crippling broken inner-city families is itself dispiritingly pulled sideways in the Baltimore-set indie LUV. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerryJan 17, 2013
It's a shame that the plot proves to be such a head-scratcher when so many elements of the film seem promising. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubJan 17, 2013
The strength is in the performances and visual detail. The flaws are mostly in the script, which asks the youngest cast member to pull off a near-impossible transformation. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayJan 16, 2013
Candis and Wilson sandbag their actors with dialogue that's a mix of dull exposition and pulp clichés, and rarely natural-sounding or colorful. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 15, 2013
Even if some of them are playing hackneyed gangster-film types, the strength of the actors makes it almost possible to forgive the formulaic plotting and artificially movie-ish developments. Candis and Justin Wilson's screenplay stretches credibility thinner and thinner as the story advances. Read full review
50
VarietyRobert KoehlerNov 4, 2012
Heartfelt and formulaic in equal measure. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJan 17, 2013
The rapper and actor Common has become a highly skilled screen star, but this touchy-feely dud does him wrong. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 18, 2013
Thank goodness for Rainey. Even when the story feels false, he never does, operating with an open-faced sense of easy honesty that is missing from much of the rest of the film. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJan 17, 2013
The first half of the movie is painfully tense, drawing us into a relationship that we desperately want to see work. But the screenplay lets its characters down, as it devolves into platitudes and melodrama. Read full review
40
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonJan 15, 2013
Although Common and Rainey make a well-matched duo, their chemistry is frequently squandered by a script that boxes them into impossible roles in one clichéd scene after another. Read full review
40
Time OutEric HynesJan 15, 2013
With its rock-skimming male bonding alternating between grisly homicides and a florid Mexican standoff that begets a tidy take-the-money-and-run finale, this tale seems less timely than merely tall. Read full review
38
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJan 30, 2013
The absurd turns the story takes to serve up streetwise and bloody "life lessons" for the kid will make any parent blanch and any movie lover roll his or her eyes. Read full review
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