The Whistleblower Reviews
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
While it's overstuffed with characters - and not entirely satisfying as an entertainment, the film does manage to remind us of the human capacity for rationalizing atrocity. And the human capacity for doing the right thing nevertheless.
Full Review
| Original Score: 83/100
Top CriticClumsily didactic and flat.
AV Club
Kondracki offers a glimpse of a monstrous world -- made worse because some of the monsters in it were sent there to protect people -- but doesn't suggest any nuanced understanding of it.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
St. Paul Pioneer Press
The movie is not great, but Weisz is.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Slant Magazine
A grim lamentation for victims of sex trafficking in postwar Bosnia is buried beneath rote filmmaking and cartoonishly rendered villainy.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
At the Movies (Australia)
Instead of capitalising on a really fine performance from Rachel Weisz in the leading role, Kondracki makes a real mess of it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
The Age (Australia)
The closing minutes of the film suggest the most challenging parts of the story still remains untold.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Director Larysa Kondracki's fictionalized account of a true story is underserved by a melodramatic script; the result is like a film of a "60 Minutes" segment.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Common Sense Media
The thriller stuff is very soft, and the docudrama stuff is too focused on "Oscar moments" (i.e. huge expressions of outrage and torment).
Filmcritic.com
arrives in theatres stamped with a self-important seal of approval
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Scene-Stealers.com
The Whistleblower goes off the rails a little -- I guess in an attempt to create more drama out of an already dramatic situation. As the plot devices pile up towards the end, it's a bit frustrating because there's a good movie in there somewhere.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
7M Pictures
Yes, The Whistleblower has its heart in the right place. However, that heart is bleeding a little too much.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
"The Whistleblower" has a choppy, fumbling screenplay (by Ms. Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan) that lurches between shrill editorializing and vagueness while sorting through more characters than it can comfortably handle or even readily identify.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
That you leave the film with nagging doubts and questions is not a problem. That you leave it with a sense of disappointment, however, is.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
If this well-meaning melodrama contains a call to action, it's as quiet as a dog whistle.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Reel Film Reviews
...a preachy, hopelessly heavy-handed piece of work...
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
ReelTalk Movie Reviews
The cardboard characters have no shadings between good and nasty here; and Rachel Weisz' face is often unsuccessfully framed to indicate thought or something.
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Structured and shot like a quality premium-cable channel police drama, this fact-based story might have had more impact as a documentary.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
