Allison Benedikt

Brewer achieves near perfection in this tense, intimate meeting between two lifelong hustlers.

I've had the unique pleasure of reviewing almost all of Duff's movies, and if there's one thing to say about the girl, she's consistent: nice, sweet, blond, inoffensive and uninspiring.

So what started as a female "Agent Cody Banks" happily and seamlessly becomes so much more, with style and substance existing in unusual harmony for a spy spoof.

Tucker has done a bang-up job, distancing and hypnotizing us with his frenzied, fragmented, sexy images. But war isn't a video game.

Not funny because it's not true.

With husband and wife starring, you can't help but wonder which details here are autobiographical. No matter: This is obviously a deeply personal work for Attal, whose comic timing and passion can only serve him well both on screen and off.

For awhile, the stately symphonic score, urbane setting and understated dress make Birth feel powerful--until it feels empty, lacking what Glazer so furiously exhibited in his equally stylized freshman endeavor: heart.

It's just OK. Not great. Not awful. Not particularly memorable. Not entirely forgettable. Just OK.

This is familiar clowning territory for our actors -- hypothetically well-matched here, with Carrey a far more sophisticated and energetic comic partner for Leoni than Adam Sandler was in "Spanglish."

It's hard to breathe in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs, a relentlessly taut Hong Kong cop thriller that, unlike many of its cinematic peers, doesn't burn off tension in choreographed action sequences.

There's really just not a lot here. I'm sure Racer's story will entertain the very wee ones -- but so do keys.

I guess there's something progressive going on when a lesbian love story gets to be just as dreadful and tacky as most straight ones.

It's a cute romantic comedy, just as Shakespeare intended.

Politics hovers over every moment of Another Road Home, Elon's layered, loving and deeply personal documentary about her quest to find the Palestinian caregiver who raised her.

It's when Spielberg stops trying to think so hard that Munich works best. Though some of the assassination scenes feel a little too choreographed, more "West Side Story" than "Bourne Identity."

Commenting on performances here is like critiquing the production design of a porno--it's beside the point. Briefly: Knoxville, bad choice, man. Reynolds, you make a good villain. Simpson, lovely posing. Scott, you're from Minnesota and it shows--but I bet stunt driving school was fun.

Mad props to Peter Zuccarini, who headed the team of ocean-bound photographers and captured some remarkably vivid footage, and also to the actors, who spend plenty of time looking cool, calm and collected swimming with the predatory fishes.

Michael Showalter is a funny man, but … how to put this gently … not a funny movie star.

Don't let the fast-and-loose vibe fool you: Right up to its operatic finale, this is one tight one last job.

An uplifting, funny and engaging star-studded affair.

The gall of Peter and Bobby Farrelly. To think that a romantic comedy might work absent a sleazy wager or maddening miscommunication takes a lot of chutzpah.

A pretty entertaining case against our current war and question the integrity of our president, but more than that, these docs manipulate imagery, music and sound bites to work their audiences into a frenzy.

These are not people me and you and everyone we know know--these are "short version" people, characters who comfort each other by quoting Shakespeare.

Classic Bay, except it's missing the crass director's fine-tuned rhythm, his feel for adrenaline, his breakneck edits and sense of humor.

Steering clear of phony melodrama and indie pretense, Baumbach captures a crisis in one family's life that, though it shakes the foundation, leaves all four Berkmans drifting toward highs and lows unknown, each of them only dimly aware that, no matter what the movies tell us, we never really come of age.

Its gorgeous black-and-white photography, dirty and matte, will almost convince you that anything this slow, small and bereft of dialogue must be important.

A childish and visually repetitive movie, ham-fisted, proselytizing and overtly simplified.

Munchausen is indeed a beautiful, burgeoning, madly voluptuous movie from minute to minute and image to image; it's in the aggregate that the film fails to find the weight and the rhythm it needs to truly enthrall. [10 Mar 1989, p.A]