Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

The most powerful scene in the movie, and the one that most fully encompasses its meaning, belongs to Mrs. Morobe (the marvelous Thandi Makhubele).

Slant Magazine by Oleg Ivanov

Roland Joffé's film is largely successful in its attempt to grapple with the terrible truths of apartheid and its legacy.

Screen Daily by Wendy Ide

The Forgiven is a decidedly uneven piece of work.

Screen International by Wendy Ide

The Forgiven is a decidedly uneven piece of work.

The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck

Featuring excellent performances by Forest Whitaker as Tutu and Eric Bana as an imprisoned racist government death-squad assassin seeking clemency, The Forgiven tackles its important political and social issues in an overly talky fashion.

The New York Times by Glenn Kenny

When the movie can stay out of its own way, it delivers some powerful scenes, including one in which Blomfeld faces down a would-be assassin (Nandiphile Mbeshu, superb) in a prison shower room. But beyond that, the movie offers conventional gratifications and no surprises.

Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein

Tutu and Blomfeld's confrontations have vigor and commitment but don't build to the requisite catharsis.

Variety by Guy Lodge

It’s Eric Bana, cast as a fictionalized composite of various white-supremacist apartheid criminals, who comes closest to electrifying proceedings in what’s at heart a one-room two-hander, unconvincingly padded and populated for the big screen.

Village Voice by Craig D. Lindsey

Unfortunately, this movie has so many damn things percolating all through it that it ultimately seems unfocused and painfully earnest.

RogerEbert.com by Simon Abrams

The Forgiven consequently only succeeds as an ugly, empty-headed provocation.