50
Metascore
6 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 63RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloRogerEbert.comMonica CastilloThe result is sometimes dizzying, enchanting or confounding, but it is certainly never boring.
- 60Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinLos Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinUnfortunately, the film, costarring Erik LaRay Harvey, Robert Ri’chard and Ian McShane, turns overly violent, raw and showy, undermining the glorious music (written, arranged and performed by Wynton Marsalis), superb period re-creation and Carr’s powerful lead turn.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterKeith UhlichThe Hollywood ReporterKeith UhlichSince the lead character is effectively a mystery man, some lack of grounding is appropriate. Unfortunately, the impressionism — the improvisation, you might say, of this particular life (mirroring, one supposes, Bolden's approach to music) — is so dominant that it finally proves a crutch.
- 50VarietyScott TobiasVarietyScott TobiasPritzker and Rothschild’s script feels like such a composite of jazz biopics that its only in the performance sequences, parceled out stingily amid the misery, in which Bolden really comes alive.
- 40New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNew Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottWhat we end up with is a film that contains many fine moments -- the young Bolden's discovery of rhythm, an imagined discussion on musical improvisation between Bolden and clarinetist George Baquet, a look at racial politics of the day -- but those moments don't quite coalesce into a consistently satisfying whole.
- 38ObserverOliver JonesObserverOliver JonesMost filmgoers will come away only mildly convinced of Bolden’s place as jazz’s inventor and even less sure that the movie they just saw spun a coherent or compelling narrative.