the story itself is riveting. With its look into 20th-century discrimination that still casts a shadow on communities today, and stellar performances from Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson, "The Banker" is worth watching with the whole family
the film has a superb cast, with each actor biting into his role in a different showpiece style; Visually, it's got a picturesque but antiseptic made-for-streaming quality, and as drama it's like a deep-dive magazine article in movie form
thanks to the three strong performances at its heart -- especially that of a wisecracking Samuel L. Jackson -- "The Banker" often is as entertaining as it is enlightening
it's a breezy historical biopic that plays like "BlackKklansman" for math nerds, but it's too stodgy to add up; As a result of its poor investments, "The Banker" never achieves the cogent moral velocity it needs to sell this story
interesting, funny, historically fascinating; despite the recognizably daunting challenges in telling this long-arc story in an entirely coherent way, "The Banker" spins a surprising and engaging yarn pinned to central elements that made it hard to tell
"The Banker", fun and illuminating, deserves your highest interest; this is a film brimming with essential truth about the events at hand, and it delivers an impactful but also entertainingly resonant message
"The Banker" is the kind of mainstream, old-fashioned movie that gives middlebrow a good name: It may not be a solid-gold slam-dunk, but it delivers on the audience's investment, with minimum risk and modest interest.
by Richard Roeper [Chicago Sun-Times ]
by Ann Hornaday [Washington Post ]
