Riders of Justice
Magnet Releasing | Release Date: May 14, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinKaren GordonMay 19, 2021
Jensen is a master at finding that sweet spot between oddness and pathos. Mikkelsen makes you believe it’s all possible. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMay 14, 2021
Brutal, sad, funny, and disarmingly sweet-natured, Riders of Justice is not so much a revenge movie as a movie about revenge. Read full review
100
The PlaylistAndrew CrumpMay 12, 2021
Riders of Justice ties together gun fights seamlessly with melancholy and masculinity, putting them on similar footing without one gobbling up the others. The effect is complimentary. Remove one theme and the others crumble. Jensen quietly, and nearly constantly, adjusts his filmmaking to suit varying tones, softening for moments where the subject is human suffering and then hardening around muscular elements Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMay 20, 2021
A kind of popcorn movie that doesn't just let wit and storytelling serve as the garnish for big-bang action, but makes that its actual priority. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 14, 2021
Many movies are about only one thing, just as many performers display only one emotion at a time. Mr. Jensen’s film is about so many things, and varies its tone so fearlessly, that watching it gives you whiplash: I for one loved the whipping. Read full review
90
VarietyJay WeissbergMay 11, 2021
The film’s significant humor comes from amusingly implausible situations coupled with rapid-paced droll dialogue; its equally sizable heart derives from the script’s respect for society’s outcasts and Jensen’s way of nimbly endowing every character with their own emotional backstory, all in need of healing. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerMay 27, 2021
This dandy foreign feature from Anders Thomas Jensen is only posing as a revenge film – clickbait for the violence junkies and the popcorn crowd. Yes, leading man Mads Mikkelsen plays a brooding killing machine out to avenge the loss of a loved one. But Riders of Justice, in Danish with English subtitles, is actually a pitch-black comedy about questions, coincidences and ideas that pile up faster than the body count. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 14, 2021
What starts as the knotted stuff of violent coincidence soon unravels into something more bittersweet, as Mads Mikkelsen’s first movie after Oscar winner “Another Round” restitches itself into another giddy and unexpectedly poignant modern fable about the search for meaning in a world where everything happens by chance, but nothing is a coincidence. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJul 24, 2021
We laugh, partly, from relief at escaping the unimaginable. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJul 23, 2021
What separates the ensuing mayhem from a thousand generic thrillers out there is an impish streak and writing that smartly juggles big ideas, mad gun battles and guilty laughs. Read full review
80
The GuardianSteve RoseJul 22, 2021
There are action thrills, to be sure, but they are folded into what becomes a sort of group therapy session on the psychology of grief, guilt, vengeance, chance and coincidence. Even more blessedly, it’s often hilarious. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJul 20, 2021
Riders Of Justice is an oddball delight. Taking a leaf from the Coens’ playbook, it’s by turns ultra-violent then drily funny and surprisingly wise. Come for Mikkelsen, stay for his winning band of lovable losers. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneJessica KiangMay 17, 2021
Such wild zigzags in tone — between bumbling physical comedy and lightly stinging satirical observation, between heartbreaking vulnerability and bursts of gleefully vicious, slickly choreographed violence — ought not to work at all. And yet they do, thanks to Jensen’s calm, slightly wry command of the story, and a cast that have all understood the assignment, even when their respective assignments are all quite different. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenMay 13, 2021
The upshot, deftly blending over-the-top violence and healing crisis management sessions, ultimately ties all the laugh-out-loud audacity and tender sweetness together with a festive Christmas bow Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganMay 11, 2021
Riders Of Justice is salty, violent, transgressive, button-pushing, non-PC and laugh-out-loud funny at times – and when you’re not gasping or laughing, it’s only to wonder at the mind which pulled all of this together. Read full review
80
CineVueMatthew AndersonMay 11, 2021
An expertly handled plot, interweaving lives, coincidence, past trauma and circumstance, is concerned with far more than mere bloody vengeance. Five years since the delirious oddity that was Men & Chicken, Jensen gets members of the old band back together for a thrilling, poignant film which sees writer-director and cast on top form. Read full review
79
Paste MagazineJacob OllerMay 17, 2021
Though there’s a bit of a moral jumble to its ultimately productive deconstruction of the revenge movie and it’ll certainly never be a bedtime story, Riders of Justice still has a savvy lesson to impart to the grown-up children raised on the strong and silent type. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMay 19, 2021
Remember that meme format about how “men will literally x instead of going to therapy”? That’s arguably the elevator pitch for Riders of Justice, a spiky, sensitive, lewdly humorous, and sporadically violent meditation on obsession, vengeance, and statistical probability. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMay 25, 2021
There are plenty of left turns (and the occasional dead end) here, but Riders of Justice is no waste of time. The mayhem is mixed with unexpected thoughtfulness. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonMay 13, 2021
At its heart, it’s a darkly comic drama about a man trained to be a killing machine who must rediscover his own humanity before his daughter loses hers. Along the way, a family of quirky characters is formed. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 11, 2021
Hollywood treats the road to revenge as straight, narrow and bloody. With Riders of Justice, Jensen considers the myriad other places such a path can lead and finds regret, heart and humor along the way. Read full review
70
The New York TimesBeatrice LoayzaMay 13, 2021
In the end, Jensen opts for feel-good fantasy over hardened truths, but his dizzyingly chaotic methods amount to a dynamic, unexpectedly touching ode to the difficulties of baring your vulnerabilities to genuinely overcome them. Read full review
70
IGNMatt FowlerMay 13, 2021
A pleasant surprise that both undermines and elevates typical revenge sagas, Riders of Justice is a unique blend that charms and captivates. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenMay 10, 2021
Ultimately, Anders Thomas Jensen cannot reconcile the fact that a mature story of men in crisis doesn’t coherently mesh with suspense scenes in which his protagonist viscerally annihilates a violent gang. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubCharles BramescoMay 11, 2021
A scattered but likable jumble, the film has a thoughtful manner more than it has actual thoughts, much like the trio of quasi-intellectuals joining forces with Markus. Read full review
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