Nelsan Ellis

Like a biography plucked from the shelf of a grade-school library...includes ample inspiration and sufficient history to get to its destination in "express" fashion.

[This] bromantic drama...becomes as frustratedly impotent as Lopez feels, and as chokingly symbolic as Ayers looks with an Uncle Sam top hat on his head and an American flag in his shopping cart.

Despite admirable work from Whitaker and Winfrey, Lee Daniels' The Butler is nearly crushed by its own symbolic weight and its contrivance of a central character arc from keeping one's head down to learning to stand up.