The Tillman Story
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: August 20, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Mary's search drives The Tillman Story, and throughout this taut, true epic, we see a smart, sometimes angry, always loving family find their destiny: to speak truth to power, to call wartime myths what they are and to show how the American character is not about blind obedience. Read full review
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
One of the year's best documentaries. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It is enraging yet nuanced, an elusive combination for any documentary. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
By the way, The Tillman Story has an R rating because of language. Think about that one, too: Lies are rated G and can be heard around the clock on television, but try saying the truth with the proper force and you end up with a restricted audience. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
In the propaganda-filled realms of politics, sports, and the military, that kind of no-bullsh-- -allowed truth feels cathartic. No wonder the Tillman family has spent much of the last 10 years fighting for it. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Amir Bar-Lev shows in the absorbing, eye-opening and sometimes enraging film The Tillman Story, if there was one thing that you could count on Pat Tillman to do it was speak his mind: loudly, intelligently, and often in salty, pointed language. Read full review
90
NPRBob Mondello
The Tillman Story is ferocious filmmaking, but it wouldn't have half the force it does if the director didn't also get at the complicated man Pat Tillman was. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
It's a fascinating film, full of drama, intrigue, tragedy and righteous indignation, but maybe its greatest accomplishment is to make you feel the death of one young man -- a truly independent thinker who hewed his own way through the world, in the finest American tradition -- as a great loss. Read full review
90
VarietyDennis Harvey
A riveting account of how a soldier's death in Afghanistan was spun into a web of public lies. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
A story that won't go away, won't leave you alone, won't let you feel at ease. Intensely dramatic, filled with elevated heroism, crass self-interest and blatant stupidity, it's a paradigmatic narrative of our tendentious, turbulent times. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen Holden
This devastating film persuasively portrays them (Tillman family) as finer, more morally sturdy people than the cynical chain of command that lied to them and used their son as a propaganda tool. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Where the film shines is in its vivid and affecting portrait of Tillman himself. Instead of the square-jawed hero memorialized by the army and lionized by the news media, we get to know a man of many gifts for many seasons. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
Watching the film, emotions range from sadness, of course, to frustration to outright anger. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The Tillman Story is a probing examination of truth, decency and the American way. It also explores deception and military propaganda and lays bare the ravages of grief. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
As taut and suspenseful as any fictional mystery. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
This documentary succeeds triumphantly on so many levels that its full impact doesn't hit you until you have time to register its aftershocks. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Bar-Lev tells Tillman's story "Rashomon"-style, incorporating multiple perspectives on Tillman's politics (left-liberal), religion (atheist), and personal relations (he married Marie, his first and only girlfriend). Still, it is a documentary with more details of how he died than how he lived. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Emerges as the summer's first true must-see film, required viewing for everyone, but especially audiences in Washington. Read full review
85
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
The Tillman Story isn't designed to be a shockeroo exposé; it's more a slow, steady rumble of anger and dismay at what the U.S. military, and the government, can get away with in the name of public relations, as if PR - and not human lives - were the most important consideration during wartime. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Unravels the deceptions -- and the deep dishonor -- that inflated life-size valor into fake superheroism. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMelissa Anderson
The Tillman Story goes deeper, exposing a system of arrogance and duplicity that no WikiLeak could ever fully capture. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineRay Greene
The Tillman Story illustrates the amazing lengths the Pentagon went to in order to hide the details of that killing. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJustin Lowe
Capably narrated by Josh Brolin, Amir Bar-Lev's penetrating and vital documentary goes beyond tracking the Tillman family's investigation into Pat's death to question the motives of commanding officers and higher-ups. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid Fear
The Tillman Story balances cynical and inspirational aspects in equal measure. Pat's demise-and the media debacle around it-seems that much more tragic and enraging. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Bar-Lev ponders myth in both senses of the word-as a web of lies, but also as a psychological construct that gives life purpose. An atheist and critical thinker, Pat Tillman had no use for either. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
He just wasn't the sort of hero the government pretended he was. This eye-opening, inspiring movie is a permanent corrective to that deception. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Though the story played out in the national media, this documentary makes effective use of commentary by Tillman's survivors, who resent the way the military lied to them and exploited the memory of their loved one to serve an ulterior purpose. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
The Tillman Story purports to be an exposé of the cover-up of the death by friendly fire of the Army Ranger and one time NFL star Pat Tillman. But, provocative and colorful as the film is, it does the very thing it denounces -- massaging the facts to seize Tillman for a political agenda. Read full review
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