The Paperboy
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Metascore
48 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 21 Critics What's this?

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  • Starring: John Cusack, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron
  • Summary: It all begins in the steamy rural backwater of Moat County, Florida, where things have been done the same way for decades, yet change is bubbling beneath the surface. Boyish Jack Jansen, son of the local newspaper publisher, has just returned home after being kicked out of college, only to take the lowly job of paperboy. But that too changes when his idolized journalist brother Ward comes to town from Miami on the trail of a story that could make his career. Bringing in tow his hotshot writing partner Yardley and the alluring death-row groupie Charlotte Bless, Ward plans to prove that an innocent man has been railroaded on his way to the electric chair. With Jack as their driver, the quartet arranges to meet Hillary Van Wetter, the seedy alligator hunter hastily convicted of killing the local sheriff, at the prison. But what erupts between them all is a tangled web of sexual tension, mixed motives and shadowy facts that will set off not only a search for the truth but a chain reaction of passion and violence. Observing it all is Jack’s only real confidante -- the disregarded family maid Anita – who watches in dismay as his innocence is turned inside out. (Millennium Entertainment)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 21
  3. Negative: 6 out of 21
  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    Sep 29, 2012
    80
    In the spirit of the venture, the entire cast gets down and comes off all the better for it. Both Efron and McConaughey get very messed up physically, and both actors seem stimulated to be playing such flawed characters.
  2. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    Oct 4, 2012
    60
    While the portrayal of Southern race relations in the '60s is less central here than in "The Help," it's also less labored and earnest, and one could argue that it's subtler, more intimate and more honest.
  3. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Eric Kohn
    Oct 4, 2012
    33
    Lee Daniels' The Paperboy is a rare case of serious commitment to outright silliness.

See all 21 Critic Reviews

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