Halle Berry shows real filmmaking talent, but there's too much going on throughout the movie, when the story demands a more consistently minimalist treatment.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 31, 2021

Kick butt, break rules, and direct your first feature after 50? Maybe Berry could be the next Bond.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2021

The end is fairly predictable. The way it gets there is decidedly not.

| Dec 4, 2021

Berry's skills behind the camera are a work in progress. In front of the lens, she is a virtuoso.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 3, 2021

A film that uses the predictable beats of a fighter's comeback to create a showcase for hard-hitting performances.

| Dec 1, 2021

I hate to say this, but it feels like a real vanity project from [Halle Berry].

| Dec 1, 2021

It opens strong, but then it slips into trite reflections of better movies about the same thing.

| Dec 1, 2021

There's a lot going on and somehow not enough, because the emotional destination is so obvious, the tone so wearying and the performances, mostly, so stilted.

| Nov 29, 2021

It's rare that trauma narratives show the mess and muck of healing, but Bruised valiantly lets Jackie falter, get back up, and try again.

| Nov 29, 2021

Even a slight dialing back of the continuously tragic mode Berry commits herself to would have made a difference, but as it is, the film fails to land a KO.

| Nov 28, 2021

Against quite some odds, the film feels real. Next time, just make it half the length.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 25, 2021

When it's firing on all cylinders, Bruised finds the Sirk amidthe Stallone, wringing truly grand melodrama out of women reshaping their lives while beating each other senseless.

| Original Score: B | Nov 24, 2021

The only reason you like this hot mess of a person is that it's Berry who plays her. Next time, put it to better use in a movie with some originality.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 24, 2021

It's not badly made, necessarily, just entirely unsurprising.

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

Berry's exhausting directorial debut pummels us with cliches and subplots.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 20, 2021

Not even Halle Berry's presence can enliven this stale sports film-family drama mash-up. By the end of it, the barrage of clichés leaves you black and blue.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 19, 2021

The film is rescued at almost every turn by Berry's fearless, vanity-free turn.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 19, 2021

Bruised is a marks-for-effort sort of film, but also a genuine reminder of Berry's acting talent and drive to make films with gritty emotional clout.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2021

As a director, Berry provides the true emotional punches that the film otherwise pulls.

| Nov 18, 2021

A familiar comeback tale relying on the inner-city motifs of 1990s hood films to deliver a melodramatic, barely coherent prestige vehicle with very little to say about MMA itself.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 17, 2021