LUVMovie Reviews

So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 52 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
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Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    New York Post | Farran Smith Nehme

    Candis gets some wonderful performances from his impressive cast. Read full review

  • 75
    Charlotte Observer | Lawrence Toppman

    The big names in the cast add atmosphere in small doses, especially when Haysbert and Glover combine. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Here is a film about African Americans that sidesteps all the usual, hopeful cliches and comments on how one failed generation raises another. Read full review

  • 63
    Slant Magazine | R. Kurt Osenlund

    As a film that largely works as a subdued twist on the familiar drama about crime and family, LUV needed more intimacy and focus. Read full review

  • 63
    Chicago Tribune | Michael Phillips

    An uneven but strongly acted debut feature from co-writer and director Sheldon Candis. Read full review

  • 60
    NPR |

    So it's nice that, despite some cliched rhythms, the flawed-ex-con-makes-good drama LUV gets the details of childhood-cut-short heartbreakingly right. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter | David Rooney

    Even if some of them are playing hackneyed gangster-film types, the strength of the actors makes it almost possible to forgive the formulaic plotting and artificially movie-ish developments. Candis and Justin Wilson's screenplay stretches credibility thinner and thinner as the story advances. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub

    The strength is in the performances and visual detail. The flaws are mostly in the script, which asks the youngest cast member to pull off a near-impossible transformation. Read full review

  • 42
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    The rapper and actor Common has become a highly skilled screen star, but this touchy-feely dud does him wrong. Read full review

  • 40
    New York Daily News | Elizabeth Weitzman

    The first half of the movie is painfully tense, drawing us into a relationship that we desperately want to see work. But the screenplay lets its characters down, as it devolves into platitudes and melodrama. Read full review