Anita Gates

Mr. Refn may yet have justification for boasting about his natural talent. There is one magnificent scene in Pusher... Maybe Mr. Refn's next film will take us into that emotional territory.

It does have the feel of farce at times, but much of the time it just seems determined to shock.

This is a one-dimensional, sometimes illogical film, but it's certainly good-looking.

Wants to be both heartwarming and quirky but is sometimes just cutesy instead.

Jake Wade Wall's screenplay does deserve a word of praise. It has managed to incorporate the advent of cellphones, the *69 command and caller ID, which could have easily made the entire story impossible.

Modest, disturbing documentary.

Boss is billed as an action comedy, but it isn’t always clear what is part of the joke and what isn’t.

Giorgio Perlasca, who has been compared to Oskar Schindler, deserves better than this Italian television film.

For most moviegoers over 12, this, the fourth Three Ninjas movie, will be interminably boring. But it's possible that young children will enjoy the film, since it falls into both the action category and the children-are-smart-adults-can't-do-anything-right genre.

The film is exaggerated, ludicrous and simplistic. It shows a towering disdain for both men and women. But Angie and Marco have a certain good-natured charm, and there are some nice shots of Shanghai.

Like so much of current polarized communication, “Assaulted,” wherever it is shown, is likely to be preaching to the choir.

The film means well but feels generic, strained and claustrophobic (despite several scenes at a deserted beach), with tight close-ups and sudden confrontations.

Venom certainly can't be called a good movie, but within its genre it's perfectly palatable.

The cast does a fine collective job, and Mr. Brill’s script flirts with clever charm here and there. But the whole film is a missed opportunity because the situations repeatedly defy credibility, and the humor never says anything remotely fresh about human nature or the world we live in.

Thomas Carter, the director, whips us into a frenzy during the big winning-again-is-everything game, as all sports underdog movies must. But in the end, the only real impact is limited to a few scenes.

Mildly scary here and there. It does not play by all the horror movie rules (e.g., the black guy always dies first). And the cast is good-looking.

Watching the rest of Damon Dash's playful movie is like entering a room where a large, too noisy party is going on and never fully adjusting to the dark or the din.

Rise to Power is notable for one achievement: It makes Sean Combs (better known, at the moment, as Diddy) unconvincing as a rich man who enjoys power and luxuries.

Their meeting was arranged by the filmmaker, and their encounters reek of false bonhomie.

Things turn loud and desperate and stay that way.

The script, by Mr. Greer and Helene Kvale, rolls along with lifeless, profoundly unimaginative dialogue.

Most of this is old news. And the filmmakers never make a coherent case, at least not to the layperson. As a result, the film, which runs about 90 minutes, seems painfully long.

Not a shred of suspense enlivens the proceedings, and the movie's idea of humor is having a man slip and slide on a floor covered in blood.

Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, who wrote the screenplay, have crammed dozens of movie parodies into this deliberately juvenile spoof of romantic comedies. Mr. Seltzer, who directed, has made very few of them funny.

The script, by Chris Haddock, leaves numerous questions unanswered. It also reflects the character depth and conversational complexity of a 14-year-old’s first effort at fiction.