While uneven, Let Him Have It manages to remain watchable because of the controversial chain of events that it depicts. It's a valuable history lesson, but far from a classic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2021

This is deeply moving, and I nearly wept.

Full Review | Jul 19, 2018

The last 30 minutes of the story are overwhelmingly strong, blending human drama and social history into a series of extremely moving scenes, leading to a brief coda that's as unexpected and audacious as anything seen on a movie screen in years.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2014

Courtenay slowly works his way into the center of the movie's sympathies. When he embraces his remaining family at the moment of his son's execution, his sorrow seems boundless.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2014

As the protagonist/victim, Eccleston gives a superb, riveting performance in his feature-film debut, as does Reynolds, another newcomer who deftly handles the role of the gun-crazy and trigger-happy Chris.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2014

Let Him Have It is unabashedly weighted toward the perspective of the murderer as victim -- a notion that does not enjoy much public currency in our more violent times. But if ever there was a victim of the judicial system, it was Derek Bentley.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 28, 2014

It's the kind of resonant, controlled and moving film that is all but unmakeable in America today. More's the shame.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 28, 2014

The script, by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, finds enough quirks in its protagonists to lift them above the issues-movie premise. Michael Kamen's atmospheric chamber score is also crucial to the film's success.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2014

A chiaroscuro drama of unstoppable tragedy.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Oct 28, 2014

Fairness isn't the issue here, dramatic depth is: You don't have to favor capital punishment to feel yourself being manipulated.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 28, 2014

Let Him Have It is strongest in the human interest department and weakest as a thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 28, 2014

The sober, relatively uninspired account of a real-life crime that shook postwar London.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2014

It does not follow that behind every great miscarriage of justice lies a great movie. Case in point: the well-intentioned but ultimately unsatisfying Let Him Have It.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2014

This recreation seethes with quiet outrage, building, albeit slowly, to a climax that should put anyone who favours state retribution over rehabilitation to shame.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 28, 2014

With drab-chic production, Christopher Eccleston's marvellous central performance and a pop nostalgia soundtrack, the odious miscarriage of justice comes vividly to life to scandalise anew those unfamiliar with the true facts.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 28, 2014

A superior docudrama about a famous 1952 English murder case.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2014

It is straightforward and riveting, with an unexpected emotional power.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2014

A stirring film which leads the viewer to empathetic resolve.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 28, 2014

The picture never seems abstract or tendentious; it's always grounded in something real. Medak's direction is sensitive and blessedly straightforward, and he does remarkable work with the actors.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2014

Let Him Have It takes one of the most controversial murder trials in postwar Brit history and comes up with a powerful mix of social conscience and solid entertainment.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2009