Bell is magnetic in the role, and there's real chemistry between him and Macdonald, but the film's formal glossiness and frequent overhead shots create distance between the viewer and the hate crimes on display.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2019

This film's saved by the Bell. But only just.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 28, 2019

The actor does his best with a threadbare character.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 28, 2019

Jamie Bell's tough performance carries this forthright, earnest, if limited drama...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 27, 2019

Skin does a great job in advancing the discourse around the recent rise of the far-right beyond the newspaper headlines.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 26, 2019

Skin is not a "nice" film to watch. But we watch it. And we keep watching it, in our heads, for a fair while after it ends.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 25, 2019

What makes Skin so frightening is that it is all based in reality. The evil depicted here roams the planet with such an unbridled hatred that it should keep everyone awake at night.

| Aug 1, 2019

A powerful - if somewhat repetitive - film, with a riveting performance at its center. And it's based on a true story where the good guys win.

| Original Score: 3.0 | Jul 31, 2019

"Skin" is a superficial and disappointing look at a person, a topic, and an organization that deserve a better, more nuanced portrayal than what Nattiv delivers. This is why "Skin" is so enraging. It can only be hate-watched.

| Jul 26, 2019

Skin is the amazing story of a man who went to extreme measures to change, on the outside and within his heart.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 26, 2019

Bell evokes a potent sense of Bryon's shifting moral compass even as his situation threatens to spiral out of control.

| Jul 26, 2019

Bell gets the opportunity to show huge emotional and physical range here, and even when the script turns a bit melodramatic toward the end, he provides a secure through-line.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 26, 2019

The failure of the film to fully grapple with how Babs's anger pulses through the lives of the women in his orbit undercuts the tremendous work that Bell accomplishes onscreen.

| Jul 26, 2019

If you have a strong stomach it is well worth seeing for the lessons it teaches about the value of survival in the pursuit of redemption.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 26, 2019

The short was crassly played vengeance, and regrettably the feature - though boasting a stellar cast - similarly stumbles in its favoring of shallow intensity over psychological depth or coherence.

| Jul 26, 2019

Jamie Bell's awards-buzzed tour de force in this fact-based drama about a neo-Nazi overcoming his toxic upbringing makes this a movie you can't get out of your head.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 25, 2019

You'd never expect a xenophobic, hate-filled skinhead to have the sweet face and demeanor of the actor Jamie Bell, which is what makes Bell's performance in Guy Nattiv's Skin so effective...

| Jul 25, 2019

Bell transforms convincingly from slogan-spewing skinhead to decent human being.

| Jul 25, 2019

But the question of how millions of people manage to live through abusive childhoods, abusive relationships, and other traumas without picking up Tiki torches and chanting "Blood and soil!" is one that Skin never ponders.

| Original Score: C | Jul 24, 2019

Watching human garbage turn into human beings can be extremely gratifying. Excellent.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 6, 2019