Critic Reviews

Thanks to the three strong performances at its heart — especially that of a wisecracking Samuel L. Jackson (who’s also one of the producers) — The Banker often is as entertaining as it is enlightening. It’s “Hidden Figures” with redlining instead of rocket fuel.

This is a film brimming with essential truth about the events at hand, and it delivers an impactful but also entertainingly resonant message. It’s also a crackling good, emotionally satisfying, old-fashioned thriller, with readily identifiable heroes and hiss-worthy villains.

George Nolfi directs with a TV-movie straightforwardness and at two hours the film is overlong, but the story is an eye-opener and the central performances are terrific.

Despite the recognizably daunting challenges in telling this long-arc story in an entirely coherent way, The Banker spins a surprising and engaging yarn pinned to central elements that made it hard to tell. Its lively, positive spirit helps it over any number of speed bumps, the social backdrops play to its advantage and the top-line cast members pull their weight and then some.

An accessible, efficiently made but not necessarily invigorating look at finance, reality, and racial injustice in the U.S.

For good stretches, The Banker can be as dryly engineered as a loan application, but the galvanizing story it tells — like a last stand of rebel ingenuity before the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made discrimination unlawful — is a solid interest-earner.

The story chronicles a fascinating moment in the civil rights movement, without yielding quite the returns that it should.

A handsome-looking if occasionally dull affair.

The Banker remains only serviceable.

It’s an earnest film graced with surprising glimpses of humanity amid persistent racist venality. The great value is in showing us a piece of history we don’t know but should, and as a terrific showcase for Mackie, Jackson, Long and Hoult.