Antwone Fisher: Critic Reviews

Washington the director couldn't have made a smarter choice for the title role -- or chosen a more appropriate project to make his own.

Induces the sort of catharsis that leaves you feeling released, enlightened and in deeper touch with humanity.

It is an inspirational, heart-tugging story of the kind Oscar might be willing to embrace.

A riveting story well told.

An assured directorial debut that goes straight for the tear ducts.

For sure, Antwone Fisher is corny. But it's corny in a way that a Hollywood movie about a boy who just wants to go home ought to be corny.

Everything -- even life on an aircraft carrier -- is sentimentalized.

In his debut as a director, Washington has a sure hand. His work with actors is particularly impressive.

Luke's performance as Antwone is strong and stirring enough to rekindle that vintage phrase 'a star is born.'

A film that begins with the everyday lives of naval personnel in San Diego and ends with scenes so true and heartbreaking that tears welled up in my eyes both times I saw the film.

Celebrates family in a way that's deeply felt by the director and screenwriter/subject and no doubt will be shared by viewers of any ethnicity.

Watchful, flinty, unexpectedly vulnerable -- and so cathartic it could wring tears from a stone.

Luke is one actor who is sure to be with us in a big way for years to come.

Denzel Washington gives a sensitive yet powerful performance as a Navy psychiatrist, and newcomer Derek Luke is a pleasant surprise as the title character.

A fine film that proves the past is never too bleak -- or the future too hopeless -- to discover a productive new life, and a home and family to share it.

Crafted with the same measured intensity and quiet authority found in his best onscreen work, Denzel Washington's debut behind the camera, Antwone Fisher, is an emotionally charged true-life story of one man's tenacity and eventual redemption.

An Oscar-worthy, emotionally honest, feel-good saga with a universality that stands out in a season of singularly depressing and cynical Hollywood product.

A film as modestly underplayed and as unassumingly classy as the star who also directed it.

Earnestly inspirational, conservatively moralistic and little on the bland side.

Well-meaning to a fault, Antwone Fisher manages the dubious feat of turning one man's triumph of will into everyman's romance comedy.

There's nothing in either the conception or execution to lift it above a TV-movie tear-jerker.

It's a familiar story, but one that is presented with great sympathy and intelligence.

Washington has a successful if modest debut film under his belt.