Pettyfer's performance is deeply engaging...Hopefully he'll find a script that fits him a little better in the future.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 21, 2021

Despite its good intentions, condemning child abuse and sexual assault, Back Roads has little to offer in the way of sensitive or stirring storytelling.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 16, 2020

Back Roads is a decently made drama, allowing Pettyfer the director the chance to hand a moody role to Pettyfer the actor.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 7, 2020

Pettyfer's tastes, shortcomings and unflagging belief in himself leave a radioactive glow that comes only from the most reliably engrossing strain of failure...

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 6, 2020

All roads lead to unintentional giggles.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 5, 2020

If you're going to engage with adultery and incest and lord knows what else, you'd be well-advised to exhibit a subversive sense of playfulness and daring along the way.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 5, 2020

It's not explicitly violent or sexually gratuitous. Just, well, morally creepy.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 5, 2020

The performances are sturdy... and the whole has a sombre determination that makes it likable and rather camp.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 10, 2020

Ultimately, though, Back Roads is unrewarding - like getting an Easter basket filled with lead eggs.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 30, 2020

The film runs just over an hour and a half but feels at least twice that long.

| Feb 21, 2020

The most important theme Pettyfer and O'Dell focus on is the strain toxic masculinity and repressed emotions alike put on the lives of people in small towns

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 28, 2019

The morose, brooding film is certainly a change of pace for Pettyfer, but only a sporadically effective one.

| Original Score: C | Dec 31, 2018

A well-acted, mostly captivating, and wholly unpredictable noir, Back Roads is an impressive directorial debut for Pettyfer, who pulls double-duty in his strongest screen performance yet.

| Dec 19, 2018

Dark and twisty indie drama.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 13, 2018

Emotions run high but Back Roads shows a promising start for Alex Pettyfer's directorial career in his first opportunity behind the camera.

| Dec 9, 2018

Although it tends to wallow in lurid melodrama, the film deserves credit for not softening its difficult subject matter.

| Dec 7, 2018

The effect, in this case, is more audacious than convincing.

| Dec 7, 2018

Ambitious but unrefined, Alex Pettyfer's directorial debut Back Roads is a raw movie overburdened by heavy-handed drama.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Dec 7, 2018

Back Roads may ultimately work better as a book than a movie, but you can't accuse this cast and crew of mailing this movie in.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 6, 2018

This was a big gamble for Pettyfer, who could have just coasted along in big budget films where actions often speak louder than the dialogue. His willingness to take a chance pays off.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 6, 2018