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
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
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