The Railway Man
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: April 11, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedApr 10, 2014
Wrenching, profound and beautifully made, The Railway Man is one of the stunning don’t-miss surprises of the still-young 2014. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinApr 10, 2014
The Railway Man is an impressively crafted, skillfully acted, highly absorbing journey into a dark corner of world history. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaApr 24, 2014
The movie boasts a tricky structure, but director Jonathan Teplitzky ("Burning Man") does an expert job of sewing together the World War II moments with sequences set in the '80s. Read full review
80
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 12, 2013
From time to time, the script contextualises a little clumsily...but the playing and pacing are terrific. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandApr 25, 2014
Lean's classic is something of a picnic compared to The Railway Man, which contains horrific scenes of torture. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubApr 18, 2014
For such a torment-filled story, the ending is surprisingly satisfying, with an important message that a lesser filmmaker might have telegraphed too much. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 17, 2014
Sometimes The Railway Man is hard to watch. It’s also hard to imagine anyone watching it and not being deeply moved. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanApr 24, 2014
The Railway Man wants to be two or three different movies wrapped up in one and ends up being a fairly mediocre version of each. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 23, 2014
Screenwriters Andy Paterson and Frank Cottrell Boyce (who wrote many of Michael Winterbottom’s early films) adeptly shift the action back and forth between these two timelines, and the drama – exterior and interior – is engrossing in both tracks. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 11, 2014
Firth is very good at playing racked men of high principle. He’s so well cast as Lomax that, at times, he’s almost too perfect in the role. He’s still the best thing about the movie. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Apr 10, 2014
Along the way, The Railway Man accumulates some power and insight, but it’s also hard to shake the feeling that a complicated first-person account has been given the Weinstein treatment. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyAdam MarkovitzApr 9, 2014
Colin Firth smolders as the PTSD-riddled veteran (played in flashbacks by War Horse‘s Jeremy Irvine), and Nicole Kidman cries dutifully as his wife — but they’re both derailed by the movie’s tidy emotional resolutions. Read full review
67
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthSep 12, 2013
For all the assuredness behind the camera and in front of it, there's very little in way of edge or even, surprisingly, emotion. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyApr 24, 2014
Firth gives the performance his all as a man trapped in a vortex of grief, shame and hate, but as in Scott Hicks’s "Shine," which the film occasionally resembles, there’s an overtidy relationship between trauma and catharsis. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreApr 22, 2014
More interesting as history, re-written, than as the moral parable this true story became. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanApr 17, 2014
The film is less deeply affecting than merely admirable. It’s a good, slick and well-intentioned film that wants so hard to be an important one that the slight feeling of letdown it leaves is magnified. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 17, 2014
Throughout, Firth compellingly plays a man struggling to make sense of the ordeal that his life has become. Too often, though, you can feel the movie struggling right along with him. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 17, 2014
Even when the film's cheating, Firth refuses to tidy up the fictionalized Lomax's emotional state. The actor, so good at playing stalwart men contending with inner demons, can utter a simple line — "I don't think I can be put back together" — and break your heart, legitimately, without histrionics. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireApr 11, 2014
Austere and old-fashioned almost to a fault, The Railway Man offers tastefully safe treatment of a horrific subject. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 10, 2014
For a well-acted movie about the horrors of war and the lure of revenge, it's surprisingly dull and starchy. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottApr 25, 2014
Nicole Kidman as wife Patti (shows nice, subtle touches in her limited time on-screen). Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenApr 10, 2014
Mr. Firth gives a reserved, compelling performance. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlApr 8, 2014
It's heartening to have a tony war film about PTSD and forgiveness; it would be grander still to have one that dedicated itself more fully to examining the courage it would take to offer that forgiveness, rather than dash its energies upon the dreary cowardice of the crime itself. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeJan 7, 2014
In Firth’s every grimace and flinch you feel the torment of Lomax’s private world, but emotionally ‘The Railway Man’ feels trimmed and tidied up. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 12, 2013
There’s something decidedly old-fashioned — and also dull as ditchwater — about Jonathan Teplitzky’s retelling of events. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 12, 2013
The result is a film that does perfectly respectable justice to Lomax's ordeal, without ever making a strong case for itself as independently stirring art. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 24, 2014
Colin Firth is an Academy Award winner, so perhaps his lack of chemistry with fellow honoree Nicole Kidman is a carefully laid clue that his middle-aged newlywed Eric Lomax is damaged goods. Yet to the drama’s detriment, Lomax is about as poisonous as a week-old crumpet. Read full review
50
Film.comJenni MillerApr 15, 2014
Suffers from a script that places dramatic emphasis in all the wrong places. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 12, 2013
The Railway Man is well-acted and handsomely produced, but its honorable intentions are not matched with sustained emotional impact or psychological suspense. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 10, 2014
Admirable without being fully engaging. It’s too intelligent to dismiss, but not emotional enough to inspire lasting passion. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 10, 2014
Nothing if not ambitious, yet at war with itself stylistically. Read full review
30
The DissolveDavid EhrlichApr 9, 2014
The Railway Man is such a safe, respectful portrait of true-life catharsis that it feels afraid to reopen the same old wounds it exalts Lomax for confronting. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithApr 10, 2014
I think I’d rather have the waterboarding than the movie’s bromides about how we’re all victims and hate must end. Read full review
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