Reservation Road
Focus Features | Release Date: October 19, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
16
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
There's a kind of tough beauty to this deft, satisfying thriller. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
It's a relentlessly downbeat, well-acted melodrama that's easy to admire, but intentionally impossible to enjoy. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
A powerful Christian parable, painful but illuminating, about crime and redemption. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
Connelly, in particular, soars as the nail-biting mother trying desperately to put on a brave face and keep her family together, while Ruffalo and Phoenix, two of Hollywood’s best brooders, are excellent as wounded young fathers. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The book tore at my heart; the movie left me strangely unmoved. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Tries rather feebly to examine complex questions of morality. It does a better job of capturing a sense of shattering grief, but it gets too caught up in plot contrivances and coincidences to be believable. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's hard to watch two fine actors working themselves into a lather for so little reward. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Unrelentingly bleak, the movie is nonetheless a riveting drama with some outstanding performances. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Instead of a tense, emotional and psychological thriller or a thoughtful exploration of grief and guilt, what we end up with is ... soap. Whether you choose to wash your hands of it is up to you. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The best efforts of the performers cannot authenticate a plot that no longer feels inevitable. It feels contrived. And the audience stays at a remove instead of entering someone else’s nightmare. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Even the best actors -- and I'd rank Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo among their generation's finest -- can't save a movie that aims for tragedy but stalls at soap opera. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Ruffalo is so squirrelly in the role that he seems like a dead giveaway from the start. You know exactly where the story is going, and, dang, that's exactly where it goes. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The result is that, rather than tragedy, this unfolds like a plodding morality tale in which Wrath and Cowardice play out their respective parts. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The real problem with this movie isn't its trashy side - the "Death Wish" stuff is actually suspenseful. It's the creepy note of causal judgment that hangs over it. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Serious Acting Opportunities abound! Unfortunately, sharp dialogue and characters who keep you riveted do not. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Dour, ponderous picture. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Hartlaub
Despite some solid acting, the film is lacking in surprises. For all the suffering that these characters endure, there's very little payoff. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
The kind of movie that moves you to tears even as you resent the manipulative mechanics of the story. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
George, director of "Hotel Rwanda," is better at directing actors than visual storytelling. Every time the camera tilted to suggest a character's shaken world or distorted worldview I didn't feel heartache, I felt headache. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
There is no reason why Reservation Road could not have been great. George has co-written some powerful films in the past, including two for Daniel Day-Lewis, "In the Name of the Father" and "The Boxer." He is not wrong to want to mainline intensity here, but the inner lives of these men have not been explored, only displayed. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Paints itself into a corner, creating a static situation in which everyone is either stymied or wracked by indecision, leaving the movie free for its two male leads to wallow in self-pity, remorse and bad behavior. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A dramatic situation that should be wrenching is mostly tedious in Reservation Road. Read full review
40
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Reservation Road itself may twist and turn into the New England night, but emotionally and dramatically, the movie that bears its name is a dead end. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert Abele
Neither involving as a study in grief nor compelling as a thriller about conscience, the cat-and-mouse tragedy Reservation Road is a misery windup so schematic and obvious it reduces its crisis-stricken characters to little more than emotional bumper cars. Read full review
40
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Very little in Reservation Road ultimately rings true, which makes the anguished theatrics on display that much more exasperating. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle Smith
In the mood for some dead-child entertain ment tonight? Reservation Road has what you're looking for. It's "In the Bedroom" crossed with, um, "Fever Pitch." Read full review
25
PremiereEric Alt
One of those infuriating films that can't allow this already dramatic situation to fester and develop on its own. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
A deadly earnest and deadly dull psychological thriller. Read full review
20
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
This is one of those sadistic exercises that puts its characters through the wringer without saying anything true or meaningful. Read full review
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