The Way Back
Newmarket Films | Release Date: January 21, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondJan 19, 2011
A grueling, stunningly photographed story. Read full review
88
Washington PostDan KoisJan 22, 2011
The Way Back diligently catalogs the outrages through which extreme cold, hunger and thirst put the body, and Weir's camera finds the terrible beauty in his actors' chapped lips, windburned cheeks and tenderized feet. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 20, 2011
The director, 66, brings his passion for precision to every frame of the film, refusing to hype or Hollywoodize the detailed richness of the story. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 20, 2011
This is old-school monumental filmmaking, without CGI tricks or many soundstage comforts for a dedicated cast. David Lean would probably approve. Read full review
80
TimeMary PolsJan 24, 2011
The overall metaphor Weir was aiming for - this idea of enemies so powerful and a war so menacing and confusingly big that no place seems safe except a place absurdly far away - comes through clearly and stays with you. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJan 21, 2011
The man-versus-the-natural world story is in Weir's wheelhouse, and Harris and Farrell get into a scene-stealing duel. Worth the trek. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberJan 14, 2011
Beyond its visual splendors, however, the film achieves searing moral power. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 21, 2011
Weir has an epic imagination but, unlike, say David Lean, he doesn't fill out the epic vision with epic characters. The result is a film that seems simultaneously grand and skimpy. Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 21, 2011
Part "The Great Escape" and part "Lawrence of Arabia, " Weir's epic The Way Back is ambitious in scope, grand in vision and rich with examples of the resilience of the human spirit. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithJan 21, 2011
Stirring as it frequently is, The Way Back is a good movie that should have been a classic. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn LevyJan 20, 2011
Weir is the real deal, and his gifts more than repay the time you invest in the film. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 20, 2011
As Russell Boyd's remarkable cinematography emphasizes the dwarfing grandeur of the surrounding topography, Weir shows how the corresponding smallness of individuals is compensated for by the grandeur of their aspiration. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 20, 2011
It's earnest and well-acted and sturdily filmed: We're in good hands and we know it. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyJan 20, 2011
Whether it is truth, fiction or, most likely, a little of each, the story Weir tells is a powerful parable of man's charge for freedom and his humbling by nature. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinJan 20, 2011
Well-acted and artfully (though conventionally) made, The Way Back tells a compelling story, regardless of whether it's based on truth or a fabrication. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumJan 20, 2011
It's also filled with scenes of extraordinary survival challenges. But the result is oddly impersonal and undifferentiated. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreJan 19, 2011
An entertaining old-fashioned prison escape movie with a touch of the epic about it. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJan 20, 2011
It's impossible not to cry at their suffering, but whether you'll feel anything is another story. Read full review
70
MovielineElvis MitchellJan 19, 2011
Weir's artisan's sureness grants a bewitching calm - his trademark ambience - to this harrowing tale. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenJan 21, 2011
The movie makes for quite a hike. It's also, at times, a bit of a slog. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJan 21, 2011
You would expect an epic with brains and hearts. Instead we settle for sturdy craft, with a stellar cast struggling to breathe life into the cold material. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 20, 2011
The Way Back, with its epic story and spectacularly bleak setting, invites comparisons with "Laurence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago." It's awash in vast, unforgiving terrain. So it got the setting right, but not necessarily the substance. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 20, 2011
The result is a brisk trot through a story that is, at heart, a tough slog. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJan 19, 2011
There is an irony here. The film exhibits an admirable determination to do justice to a real story, but the story's not real. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJan 18, 2011
The Way Back then takes its time, creeping through gorgeous locations in Bulgaria, Morocco and Pakistan, and basically feeling like a two-hour-plus version of the desert scene from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." Read full review
60
EmpireDavid HughesJan 14, 2011
Weir couldn't make a boring film if his life depended on it, and for any other director The Way Back would be laudable. It's good, but from this director we have come to expect great. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenJan 14, 2011
In its best moments is as big as a movie can be, as big as life itself. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJan 26, 2011
Ultimately, however, The Way Back fails to connect on the all-important visceral, emotional level. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 20, 2011
Most of those hardships are familiar to movie lovers; that's a reductionist view of a serious and ambitious production, but it is, after all, a movie on a screen. (And a movie with a dreadfully clumsy ending.) Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 20, 2011
Its stop-and-start feel keeps you from ever getting fully absorbed in the story. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesJan 20, 2011
Despite the two-hours-plus running time, major plot developments like the actual escape and the eventual departure of Colin Farrell's hardened Stalinist flit by so quickly that they barely register. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. HobermanJan 18, 2011
His (Weir) hardship drama is stolidly old-fashioned, more extreme travelogue than exercise in visceral horror. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 14, 2011
This arduous travelogue focuses on the macro (stunning, David Lean-like landscapes) and the micro (countless closeups of blistered flesh) to the virtual exclusion of compelling characters. Read full review
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