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The Tillman Story
Metascore
86 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 28 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 28
  3. Negative: 0 out of 28
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  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    100
    It is enraging yet nuanced, an elusive combination for any documentary.
  2. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    100
    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.
  3. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    100
    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.
  4. Tampa Bay Times
    Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    100
    One of the year's best documentaries.
  5. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    91
    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.
  6. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    91
    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.
  7. NPR
    Reviewed by: Bob Mondello
    90
    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.
  8. Arizona Republic
    Reviewed by: Bill Goodykoontz
    90
    Watching the film, emotions range from sadness, of course, to frustration to outright anger.
  9. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    90
    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.
  10. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    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.
  11. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    90
    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.
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    90
    A riveting account of how a soldier's death in Afghanistan was spun into a web of public lies.
  13. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    90
    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.
  14. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    88
    This documentary succeeds triumphantly on so many levels that its full impact doesn't hit you until you have time to register its aftershocks.
  15. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    88
    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.
  16. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    88
    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.
  17. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    88
    Emerges as the summer's first true must-see film, required viewing for everyone, but especially audiences in Washington.
  18. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    88
    As taut and suspenseful as any fictional mystery.
  19. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    85
    The Tillman Story isn't designed to be a shockeroo exposι; 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.
  20. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    83
    Unravels the deceptions -- and the deep dishonor -- that inflated life-size valor into fake superheroism.
  21. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Justin Lowe
    80
    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.
  22. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: David Fear
    80
    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.
  23. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Ray Greene
    80
    The Tillman Story illustrates the amazing lengths the Pentagon went to in order to hide the details of that killing.
  24. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Melissa Anderson
    80
    The Tillman Story goes deeper, exposing a system of arrogance and duplicity that no WikiLeak could ever fully capture.
  25. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Andrea Gronvall
    80
    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.
  26. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    75
    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.
  27. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    67
    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.
  28. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    50
    The Tillman Story purports to be an exposι 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.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.2 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 24 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 8
  3. Negative: 3 out of 8
  1. shaunmed
    3
    soldiers die and governments try to make them into heroes. whats so shocking about that? what baffles me is that you sign up to go fight in a war, you get killed, and then people make the death out to be more tragic than any other death. war = tragic. nothing new here, move on.… Full Review »
  2. hpmoon
    2
    The Tillman Story is about a professional athlete in a sport that many people love, many people are indifferent about, and many people fundamentally dislike for its violence and overwhelming corporate capitalism. Pat decided to become a soldier instead, but made it very clear that he wanted to go about it low-key and without favor. Predictably, everyone betrayed this intention (arguably, too, his own family). The rest of the film is about that betrayal. Pat is deployed, calls the war “f___ing illegal” (by one person’s account), comes back to the States, and is offered an honorable discharge with the ability to resume a full professional football contract. Despite (allegedly) having just called the war “f___ing illegal,” he rejects that offer and returns to war. In a logistically dangerous canyon, from a split troop caused by a car breakdown, Pat bravely but maybe not (in hindsight) wisely storms up a hill accompanied by an Afghan in Afghan dress, and other rangers accidentally start shooting at the Afghan, presuming he is a Taliban fighter. Pat emerges from cover, exclaims “I’m f___ing Pat Tillman!” and gets shot in the confusion. (Later, Pat’s mother — in no uncertain terms — accuses the soldiers of murder, saying that they had a lust to kill.) The Army hushes the surviving witnesses pending an inevitably long investigation — surely this takes time during a war that has higher priorities, such as avoiding bullets and bombs — but the news media takes off with the story (remember, some Americans love football). Hastily (and wrongly), someone in the military, or a few people in the military, or the entire Federal government in stunning lockstep, withholds the detail that Pat was killed by friendly fire (or as Pat’s mom would have it, lustful killing fire) amidst all the world’s attention. It is possible that he/they/everyone on the flowchart adjudged this to be the most graceful way for the family to remember a hero, or it is possible that he/they/everyone behaved like warmongers and negated the truth solely to sustain positive propaganda. Pat’s family wants to know. I sure would. At the formal funeral, Pat’s youngest brother goes up to the podium in jeans and an undershirt holding a glass of beer, chugs a bit, and says, “Pat isn’t with God, he’s f___ing dead. He wasn’t religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he’s f___ing dead.” Director Amir Bar-Lev asks if he regrets that years later, and his answer is hell no. Pat’s mother and father continue pursuing the case separately (they are divorced) and Mr. Tillman, a small-town lawyer, writes a letter to the highest levels of government that ends with, “f___ you.” An Inspector General opens an investigation and concludes that it was inappropriate to withhold the information about Pat’s death by friendly fire. The Tillmans still want confessions from everyone on the flowchart of their minds, and they press on with a bi-partisan Congressional hearing where the military’s top brass recite that they cannot remember precise dates and manners that this all went down because they were in the middle of managing a war. (No less, Pat’s wish, to not be treated specially inside his larger call of duty, rings in our ears; or it doesn’t.) One of the soldiers who was closest to Pat, who provides the most insistent narratives and opinions in the film (such as the account of Pat saying the war is “f___ing illegal”), refuses to complete his duty and a military tribunal charges him for violating the law. You might think that his resolve to serve was as fragile as this relative political news blip — and he does say in the film that he only joined the military simply to get a scholarship. All of this is in the film. It is one of the most beloved documentaries of our time, perceived as a slam-dunk invective against our government. So far. If it wins Best Documentary at Hollywood’s annual celebration of itself, the unanimous like-minded community will leap to its feet, believing that the world has changed. There are caveats to end with here. I have deep respect for the men and women who put themselves in harm’s way: even just by enlisting, they outdo everything I’ve done for my country over a lifetime. I am grateful to Pat Tillman and his family in this regard, unqualified. And one more thing: It is possible to have disagreed with the decision to go to war all along (as I did and still do), yet watch this film and be revolted by its simplistic caricatures, its stunningly agnostic treatment of arrogant assumptions, and most of all, its missed opportunity to dignify Pat Tillman: one American hero among thousands of heroes in uniforms, not jerseys. That’s how he wanted to be seen. Or so I assume.… Full Review »
  3. rmyers1000
    9
    Truth, justice and the American way. 21st century style. What's sad is how we have all become so accepting of this crappy world we have created. Pat wasn't - but he's dead.… Full Review »
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