85
Metascore
46 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFruitvale Station will rock your world — and, if the life of Oscar Grant means anything, compel you to work to change it.
- 90Film.comAmanda May MeynckeFilm.comAmanda May MeynckeFruitvale is outstanding, a telling portrait and testament to the life of one man and the complicated relationships to race and class that still exist within America today.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyAs Oscar, Jordan at moments gives off vibes of a very young Denzel Washington in the way he combines gentleness and toughness; he effortlessly draws the viewer in toward him.
- 80The GuardianXan BrooksThe GuardianXan BrooksThe robust acting and sharp sense of the Bay Area milieu glides us nicely over the film's few soft patches.
- 75The PlaylistJessica KiangThe PlaylistJessica KiangFruitvale Station is impressive for a debut, and displays the unimpeachable intent to involve us all in the human story behind a headline. And it certainly displays great promise from its director and accomplished performances from its cast.
- 63Slant MagazineSlant MagazineSensitively performed and laced with some forceful quotidian grit, the film evades the larger questions behind a scandalous shooting death.
- 60Time OutTime OutCoogler, who grew up in the same neighborhoods as Grant, evokes a tangible sense of place, and his staging of the climactic incident hits like a fist in the gut. It’s not enough to wipe out his reduction of this real-life figure into a composite-character martyr or the lukewarm filmmaking that’s come before, even if you’re left shaken all the same.
- 50VarietyGeoff BerkshireVarietyGeoff BerkshireEven if every word of Coogler’s account of the last day in Grant’s life held up under close scrutiny, the film would still ring false in its relentlessly positive portrayal of its subject.