An Unfinished Life: Critic Reviews

It's awful not in an exciting, uncontrolled way but in an overly controlled, narcotized way, an imitation of too many inspirational heal-the-pain dramas that Miramax has released since the dawn of their Oscar age.

Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez star in a sentimental western that suffocates in its own predictability and watered-down psychobabble.

There's something strangely poignant about watching Robert Redford trying to be Clint Eastwood.

An Unfinished Life doesn't succumb to the emotional dumbing-down that has become the norm in movies.

Redford's hellbound to remain the craggy cowboy who hides his feelings under Marlboro Man stoicism. Must he act like a River Runs Through everything?

Excruciatingly tasteful.

Lasse Hallstrom never met a case of advanced emotional constipation he couldn't unplug in two psychobabbly hours or less.

It's no great thing, but in their heyday as Oscar campaigners, they could have made Redford a contender.

This film's plot mechanics become too, well, mechanical.

It's a good story, well told, honed just short of a distracting sheen.

[The film] is modest and heartfelt, dealing directly with straightforward material.

In this careful, dot-to-dot prestige picture, everybody learns their lessons on cue, the abusive ex gets his comeuppance and the bear (played by Bart the Bear) who nearly murdered Mitch is freed from confinement by Einar and Griff.

Everything about An Unfinished Life's screenplay is cliched and predictable, but the actors manage to elevate the proceedings above and beyond shameless soap.

An unabashedly sudsy soap opera that overflows with warm fuzzies. It's also really well done.

Consistently entertaining and ultimately satisfying, offering Robert Redford his best role in a decade. Kids, this is why everybody used to love this guy.

An Unfinished Life is powerful, intriguing, thought-provoking and unforgettable.

A film is in some kind of trouble when, despite presence of an A-list cast and well-regarded director, the best thing in it is a partly digitized bear.

Days of Our Lives in coveralls.

It's the movie that feels incomplete.

The picture has no discernible reason for being. It's impossible to identify with characters who seem so fond of their own misery, they can't be bothered to communicate even the most basic facts about themselves.

By the conclusion, the movie turns into the ursine answer to Free Willy, veering dangerously close to New Age parody.

The picture is outrageously predictable and somewhat poky, but there's also something admirably bold about the way it so adamantly demands we swallow its hokum.

An Unfinished Life isn't original, but, for those who enjoy this sort of drama, it's an opportunity to remember how, in the right circumstances, on-screen characters can touch our hearts.

The film never realizes its dramatic potential, choosing to take predictable story paths with obvious characters.

Redford and Freeman have a relaxed rapport -- watch their expressions when Griff asks them if they're gay -- but the script keeps giving them unspeakable lines to utter.