Andrew Schenker

The modern-day sections with Mariel Hemingway, while detailing the redemptive promise of the title, too often come across as either indulgent time-filler or overflow with PSA-level superficiality.

The film smartly avoids the sort of cynical hijinks that characterize the majority of Vegas-set flicks, though it can't come up with anything more compelling to place in its stead.

Ralph Fiennes's film feels not so much rooted in the past as it is mired in conventions about how to portray that past.

The film scores all of its thematic points early, commenting intriguingly, if ultimately rather obviously, on the demands of Japanese patriarchy.

Is an exploration of sex addiction, in all its different manifestations, the new flavor of the week in contemporary American cinema?

When Diana's fixations begin to take over, Fidell seems ill-prepared to steer the film into strictly psychological territory, resulting in a project that loses its fraught sense of control at the same moment as its embattled protagonist.

The film rarely takes us past its rather obvious conclusions about the potential bestial nature of kids and how that may translate to the larger battlefields.

Walks a fine line between empathetic treatment of its characters and voyeuristic freakshow gazing.

For all of the director's willingness to explore his characters' unexpected depths, he's still hamstrung by his perpetually tasteful cinema-of-quality aesthetic.

Much of the film's attempted laughs come from the comedy-of-discomfort school, with an endless array of situations that milk awkwardness to a degree that makes these scenes far more unpleasant than humorous to watch.

Essentially the film aims to trade in the awkwardness of teen sexuality, but too often settles for the gross-out gag instead.

The movie aims for an admirable balance, but fatally upsets that equilibrium in its hurried resolutions.

Enjoyment of Jeff Kaplan's film will vary given your capacity to simultaneously laugh and wink at the hijinks of two of the least palatable characters to share screen time in recent years.

The alignment with Herman's perspective, even as it never downplays the gravity of his crimes, leads the film into a set of obvious conclusions.

The film seldom pushes beyond the bare-minimum dictates of the thriller, only rarely offering up a memorable action sequence.

All of this could be very funny, but while the film does deliver some strong comic turns, far too much time is spent watching an inactive Kofman whining about his lot.

Even as Deb comes to embrace the vibrancy of urban life, she's still prey to a blinkered suburban viewpoint which becomes inscribed in the film itself.

The characters never sound like they're actually talking to one another, but rather delivering Jeff Lipsky's echo-chamber monologues.

For all the revelations about the way the rich operate, there's little juicy pleasure to be had in the proceedings.

Allen Hughes may suggest an air of pretty menace, but he does little to make the sequence work as a legible genre scene.

This twist-heavy World War II drama would play as an absurdist comedy if the director wasn't so dead set on excluding just about any trace of humor from his self-serious project.

The film is too tepid in its treatment of its central character and her situation to generate any real emotive charge.

The film is somewhat flimsy, tinged with the impulse to make the elderly characters just the right amount of ridiculous for the benefit of younger viewers.

Undeniably rousing, but deeply irresponsible, Argo fans the flames surrounding historical events likely to still remain raw in the memory of many viewers.

Jason Moore's film is more or less successful in inverse proportion to the degree that it plays its material by the book.

Fitfully engaging, but the documentary turns into a touchy-feely isn't-it-wonderful-we're-all-saved love fest as soon as the universalists begin to dominate the interview segments.

A half-hearted morality tale about taking responsibility for your actions as a sign of impending maturity.

Nancy Savoca's film begins in caricature and ends in sentimentality, only briefly hitting the sweet spot in between.