Critic Reviews

This suspenseful, beautifully acted Dickensian drama forces us to confront our own bloodlust: do we root for the teen to win a moral victory or to beat the bad guy to a pulp?

Director Mikael Hafstrom - the gentleman responsible for last year's Jennifer Aniston bomb "Derailed" - keeps us guessing as he confidently builds suspense.

A gripping story of one teen's rebellion against his peers' sadistic abuse.

Evil is not, as the title would suggest, a horror film, at least not a conventional one. Based on the autobiographical novel by Jan Guillou and set in the mid-1950s, the film relates the experiences of a troubled young man who's enrolled into a hidebound private school.

Although Evil eventually suffers from its heavy-handed treatment of its subject, it is a well-made and engrossing melodrama.

Håfström doesn't soft-pedal the abuse meted out by either his antihero or his nemeses, which will disturb audience members who want a clean demarcation between good guys and bad.

A thoroughly serious film, full of vivid details, but also a relentlessly serious one that requires Mr. Wilson to spend a great deal of time looking disconsolate.

It's more about giving rich bullies the same comeuppance afforded to sneering wardens with bullwhips, and on those superficial grounds, it's reasonably gripping.

This didactic drama is set safely in the past and says nothing about the culture of conformity at all costs that hasn't been said before.

Bullying is not easy to watch on screen, even--or perhaps especially--if the viewer had the fortune to avoid either side of the bully/bullied equation.