Won't Back Down
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: September 28, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
18
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanSep 26, 2012
Won't Back Down says that whatever your feelings about the subject, lack of change cannot be the answer to our public-education crisis. Trying to cram an informational exposé and a vintage inspirational awards-bait weeper into one movie, Won't Back Down is awkward at times, yet it's also passionate in a surprisingly smart way. It makes a genuine drama out of impossible issues. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithSep 28, 2012
I haven't seen a timelier or more important film this year, and the film's passion for school choice could hardly be more warranted. Along with documentaries such as "The Lottery" and "Waiting for 'Superman,' " the film comes with a background sound of the ice of inertia cracking. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 27, 2012
For sure, this is a cause movie - sometimes it even feels that way - in favor of charter schools and against the teachers unions. Still, Won't Back Down is reasonably fair in its approach. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedSep 25, 2012
It's a film that deserves to be seen, savored, debated and given serious attention. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 28, 2012
Hollywood has never been the best arena to hash out policy debates. But social-issue movies can have real societal impact. That's why Won't Back Down, which presses a lot of hot buttons, deserves to be taken seriously, and criticized seriously, on its own terms. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 27, 2012
While there are moments where this drama, about a pair of mothers hellbent on improving their children's education, is compelling and deeply moving, the film gets mired in heavy-handed cliches. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 27, 2012
Barnz tries, at least a bit, to acknowledge the heroic and historic legacy of the union movement and its rightful place in the contemporary labor landscape. But much of the blame for the sorry state of Adams Elementary, and the school system at large, is placed at the union's feet. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundSep 26, 2012
One of its strengths is a knowledge of when to unfurl information, particularly for the strongest emotional effect. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineAmy NicholsonSep 26, 2012
Won't Back Down makes grand drama of bureaucracy, positioning Gyllenhaal as the knight slaying 400 pages of government paperwork in order to wrest control of her daughter's elementary school. It's rousing - if not thrilling - stuff. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianStephen WhittySep 28, 2012
Even when the details of their lives feel unbelievable, these actresses compel our faith and keep us watching. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 30, 2012
Go see Won't Back Down and enjoy it. Just don't believe it's anything more than a stacked deck with a lot at stake. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 30, 2012
If you want your movie to blow up the right way, you have to do better than the paint-by-numbers story and characters presented here. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsSep 28, 2012
While the cast is filled with award winners, writer-director Daniel Barnz is a dunce who can't construct an argument without employing flimsy logic and cardboard characters. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceySep 28, 2012
As a movie trying to make the case for parental management of the education process, Won't Back Down, doesn't make an entirely convincing case. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 27, 2012
The issue is contentious, messy, prone to wishful thinking. Some see a corporate plot to privatize schools. Others see a last chance to save them. Won't Back Down is on the latter side, obviously, and it has the boilerplate urgency of a TV movie that has been blessed with a high-end cast. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertSep 26, 2012
Both the lottery scene and the anti-union material seem to be fictionalized versions of material in the powerful documentary "Waiting for Superman," which covered similar material with infinitely greater depth. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 26, 2012
The movie addresses timely issues but eschews shading in favor of blunt black and white. It's old-school Lifetime fodder dressed up in Hollywood trappings. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 26, 2012
Grossly oversimplifying the issue at hand, writer-director Daniel Barnz's disingenuous pot-stirrer plays to audiences' emotions rather than their intelligence, offering meaty roles for Maggie Gyllenhaal as a determined single mom, and Viola Davis as the good egg among a rotten batch of teachers, while reducing everyone else to cardboard characterizations. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonSep 26, 2012
In Davis's case, marveling at yet another fine performance doesn't stop you from wishing that her first leading role was in a worthier vehicle Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinSep 26, 2012
The film's clumsy sloganeering, however, largely defeats the leads' fine efforts. Read full review
40
Total FilmKen McIntyreJan 21, 2013
The leads are fine, but the movie's about as fun as summer school. Read full review
40
MovielineAlison WillmoreSep 27, 2012
The film is all for teaching as a calling. What it doesn't do is offer it the dignity of also being a job. Read full review
40
TimeMary PolsSep 27, 2012
If "Waiting for Superman" was intended to make audiences think, Won't Back Down is supposed to make them feel. It made me feel more annoyed than outraged. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanSep 27, 2012
I am neither anti-charter schools nor anti-union. I am, however, firmly against heavy-handed lectures disguised as art. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghSep 26, 2012
The film is at its best when it focuses on real-life human drama rooted in character: failing marriages, crushing poverty, professional malaise. Davis in particular delivers as impassioned a performance as ever -- good enough that you wish you could airlift her character into another movie. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 26, 2012
So teachers' unions don't care about kids. Oh, and luck is a foxy lady. This is what I took away from the inept and bizarre Won't Back Down, a set of right-wing anti-union talking points disguised (with very limited success) as a mainstream motion-picture-type product. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldConnie OgleSep 28, 2012
Nothing wrong with a movie having a point of view, but watching people spout jargon or exposition doesn't really make for riveting entertainment. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 27, 2012
Davis, in particular, manages to create a fully dimensional character in the midst of a highly polemical screenplay. Read full review
30
NPRElla TaylorSep 28, 2012
For all its strenuous feints at fair play, though, Won't Back Down is something less honorable - a propaganda piece with blame on its mind. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 27, 2012
However you take its politics, the film upholds a dreary tradition of simplifying and sentimentalizing matters of serious social concern, and dumbing down issues that call for clarity and creative thinking. Our children deserve better. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenSep 26, 2012
The rescuing of our public schools is a national necessity. I just don't know that we are aiding that cause by sending out oversimplified and dogmatic messages about not backing down. Read full review
25
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 28, 2012
So didactic that viewers are likely to feel less uplifted than lectured. Read full review
20
Time OutKeith UhlichSep 30, 2012
The film slowly reveals its true colors, pointing a fanatically accusatory finger at teachers' unions while using twisted Obama-esque sloganeering about "order" and "hope" to further its simplistically anticollectivist agenda. Read full review
20
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 27, 2012
This poor film is so shamelessly manipulative and hopelessly bogus it will make you bite your tongue in regret and despair. Read full review
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