The Way Back

Affleck carries the movie both in his muscles and in his subtle shifts of expression.

The Way Back features the rawest and most natural performance Affleck has given in his career.

The bristly, embittered drunk is a borderline melodramatic cliché, but Affleck imbues it with a lived-in intelligence...

Affleck keeps the movie anchored with his rumpled, unshowy performance: a man killing himself to live, until he can start to believe that maybe there's a better way.

An understated portrait of a man battling his demons and trauma that never succumbs to maudlin emotion. It's also a satisfying sports movie offering all the requisite triumphs without overshadowing the more upsetting tale it's telling.

Affleck does a lot with a tailor-made role, by doing as little as his movie stardom will allow him.

The Way Back is an inspirational sports drama that follows the genre’s stereotypes and formulaic storytelling, but it’s still very successful in its execution. Ben Affleck is reason enough to give Gavin O’Connor’s flick a go.

Drawing on his own past experiences, it is one of his best on-screen performances in a long time. Affleck is the film’s MVP but [the film] falls short of the stuff hoop dreams are made of.

Gavin O’Connor’s The Way Back has a smart script that doesn’t turn over the crucial sports moment or Ben Affleck’s career-best performance.

As O’Conner showed with 2011’s “Warrior”, he’s no stranger to subverting the traditional sports drama. He does it again here on the back of a powerful, unflinching Ben Affleck performance.