91% Fruitvale Station

All Critics (78) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (71) | Rotten (7)

Fruitvale is easy to see as something more than a movie - a diagnosis, perhaps, or a part of that sticky vortex we call the zeitgeist.

Oscar Grant had friends, he had a sister and a mother and a grandmother, a girlfriend, a child. In concise measures, Fruitvale Station shows us these connections, these bonds.

Grant's ordinary life seems eminently dramatic even without its place in history.

Coogler could've settled for an enraging, full-throttle melodrama, designed to boil your blood from beginning to end. But "Fruitvale Station" is better, more heartbreaking, than that.

Fruitvale Station's wrenching power lies in the specificity of its storytelling and the ordinary human warmth of the world it conjures.

From the moment the arrest begins, the film is blunt and stunning, a completely absorbing, protracted nightmare.

Many directors have trouble accomplishing something like this even when they're throwing character development in your face. To be able to succeed by using a standard "day in the life" approach makes it all the more incredible, and makes it a must-see.

A star-making performance by Michael B. Jordan.

Even though we know where this dark road travels, the remarkable Fruitvale Station still manages to be both sorrowful and suspenseful while also celebrating a life only half-lived.

Writer/director Ryan Coogler's debut feature, Fruitvale Station, is one of those first films that announces that a major talent has hit the scene.

A gut-wrenching, emotional powerhouse of a film, politically and socially resonant while also standing on its own as a compelling and often-heartbreaking story

A viscerally wrenching experience, filled with foreboding from the first frame but stylistically naturalistic.

Strives only for an emotional response rather than an intellectual one.

Coogler's goal is clear - to put a human face on Grant, to make him recognizable.

Though the film's ending is no mystery, the personal details are what make this story so absorbing and so moving - more so precisely because his fate is already known.

It's a heartbreaking story that is so emotionally powerful that, while I may not want to see again, if it's on I won't be able to help but see it's tragic conclusion again.

"Fruitvale Station" will emotionally move you and simultaneously make you appreciate the filmmaking abilities of Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan.

There's great soul to the work, which gives a complete picture of a young man's life in microcosmic form.

BART allowed Coogler to shoot on location, and the young filmmaker, working with a score of actors and a crowd of extras, shows more competence in placing the camera coherently than many action directors with access to multimillion-dollar budgets.

Coogler shows the storytelling maturity and restraint to keep the focus squarely on the characters, not so much on the actual act of bloodshed itself but the wounds exacted upon the direct victims, witnesses, and families alike.

'Fruitvale Station,' is one the most endearing and profound films that echoes the essence of humanity. Ryan Coogler's feature debut gives Michael B. Jordan a career making performance.

Many will respond to the film as a gut-level human interest piece, but it's as curtailed and nuance-free a character study as it is a political polemic.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fruitvale_station/

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