Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Instead of captivating us with swagger, McConaughey chooses to go grim and dogged. Director Ross does the same.

Name : Joe McGovern / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Ross wants to shake up the format . but like so many directors who have tackled historical social issues before him, he confuses noble, cornball sermonizing for art.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
An earnest but inert and unwieldy historical drama that, in its commendable attempt to rescue a forgotten figure from obscurity, too often looks and feels like "12 Years a Woke Dude."

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's a good film, absorbing from beginning to end, but it's also important.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
A Civil War rebellion becomes an enervating movie by Gary Ross.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Instead of building to a crescendo, the movie trails off. By the end, serious-minded adult moviegoers may find themselves longing for another product from the well-oiled sequel machine.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The last third of the film, as it stuffs more and more in, feels less like a movie and more like cramming for a history exam at 2 a.m.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
American history is a mutable thing, shaped by our evolving sense of ourselves as a nation, which is why this Civil War drama, based on the little-known story of Newton Knight, seems so vividly modern.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
"Free State of Jones" is a well-intentioned slog through a potentially fascinating bit of Civil War history, brought to life only by Matthew McConaughey's performance, and then only occasionally.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A compelling and little-known story of the Civil War period is studiously reduced to a dry and cautious history lesson.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
If you think a thick, juicy slab of Civil War history can't be boiled down to 145 minutes of speechifying, stultifying cinema, then grab a seat. Even McConaughey is sucked dry of his usual acting panache.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
From camera composition to production design, everything looks and feels fresh-scrubbed and somewhat staid, and you don't quite believe what you're seeing.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
This screenplay is so arid in its didacticism, so pallid in its would-be passion, that it defeats [McConaughey's] efforts and our involvement, however much we may want to cut the film some slack for being about things of consequence.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"Free State of Jones" is a deeply strange movie, but that's fine - so is the history on which it's based.

Name : Owen Gleiberman / Alias : Variety
"Free State of Jones" is one of those historical dramas with a script that's big on crowning lines of moral fervor and not so big on nuts-and-bolts detail.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
The movie works as a quasi-historical ramble, thanks largely to Matthew McConaughey as Knight and the quietly valiant Gugu Mbatha-Raw as his second, common-law wife, the freed slave Rachel.

Name : John Hartl / Alias : Seattle Times
"Free State" can't settle down and concentrate. The effect is sometimes exhilarating, but covering several decades of Southern history turns out to be an energy drain.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
A riveting visual history lesson, whose occasional didacticism is integral to its power.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Free State of Jones" aspires to greatness but fumbles badly.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
This is no history lesson, but it's mainstream Hollywood entertainment that respects the history and seems to invite discussion and debate.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
The Civil War and reconstruction were messy, and Free State of Jones wants to tackle it all. In the end, it's too much for any one film to handle compellingly with such specificity.

Name : Joe Dziemianowicz / Alias : New York Daily News
McConaughey's star turn is straight-up and persuasive. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is earthy and believable as Rachel, the slave Knight falls for and has a child with.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : Village Voice
Diligent and informative but also fragmented and inert, it plays like a series of scenes and notes for a longer, more fleshed-out movie.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
Free State of Jones is a great opportunity lost.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
It's a powerful story but, as written and directed by Gary Ross, it has a by-the-books straightforwardness that sacrifices nuance for homiletics.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
If McConaughey's performance is a little too jut-jawed and noble, the script has plenty of force.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Mixing elements from documentaries, biopics, war flicks, and Hallmark romances, Ross' film is a living history tour, but with gory special effects and a smoldering smattering of sex appeal.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Strong work from McConaughey as a charismatic leader, but the film's meandering historical scope will test your patience.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
Call it a civil bore.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : TheWrap
The movie doesn't entirely escape an arid, educational quality, coming off mostly as a curious hybrid of the best and the regrettable in right-side-of-history cinema.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The director and screenwriter Gary Ross illuminates immense historical spans with the true story of one man's revolt during the Civil War.