While Back Roads doesn't live up to its considerable dramatic and thematic ambitions, it provides a strong opportunity for its filmmaker/star to stretch his dramatic muscles in the lead role.

Frank Scheck

The Hollywood Reporter

Given the outlandishness of the material here, it would have been easy to start getting unwanted laughs in the second half of the film, but Pettyfer and his actors find the truth in it, even in a very long and demanding take where Harley confronts his mother in prison.

Dan Callahan

TheWrap

Whatever it wants to say about abuse, its mental, social and sexual impact on its victims, however “daring” it aims to be, Back Roads loses in its pursuit of the sordid.

Roger Moore

Movie Nation