Ben Kenigsberg

Ambitious, heady and distinctive, if easier to admire in theory than engage with moment to moment, A Cop Movie has a conceptual strangeness that’s difficult to overstate.

Looking for rational behavior, especially in a crucial flashback, is pointless. To the extent that Two Pianos coheres, it is in a way that might be described as musical.

Ms. Maurery has great fun with the character, a tricky part because Maria nearly always maintains a kindhearted veneer, even at her most venal.

There is no mystery about who wins the movie’s final bout, but it is never less than thrilling to watch Yen’s fluttering limbs in action.

Although the film uses a conventional format, it makes an urgent argument: that a new wave of voter suppression has threatened the rights that Lewis labored to secure.

Bell is embodied, in a commanding and versatile performance, by Nicole Kidman, who supplies a gravitas and emotional complexity worthy of the woman she plays.

A movie that’s a little too eager to be liked. But it’s also tough to resist.

Like “Our House” (2018), Burns’s underseen feature debut, Come True is superior throwback horror marred mainly by familiarity and, in this case, an ending that feels like a tease.

For the right age group, though, the film hits its marks: It’s wholesome, engaging and rife with impressive aquatic photography.

Not all the material is equally striking, but the film has an original and at times disarming approach to bearing witness.

Compared with “Eddington,” this summer’s other tongue-in-cheek neo-western, the movie, ostensibly set in South Dakota, is less aggressive in its efforts to appear topical; it may not even have much on its mind beyond clever plot construction. But watching its pieces snap into place is more fun.

Johannsson’s stark, uncompromising passion project is always striking to the eye even in moments when the narrative lulls.

If Happy Hour doesn’t quite deliver all it promises, that may only be because it promises quite a lot.

the connections drawn in Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation are sufficiently instructive that watching and listening to these writers is also, in a way, like hearing one author in stereo.

As a polemic, Dirty Wars is provocative and productively depressing, raising doubts about the effectiveness of military missions that have the potential to create ideological enemies, as well as the degree to which elected officials can—or are willing to—place checks on secret ops. (Obama gets no more points than Bush in any of the matters discussed.)

Judicious editing helps to maintain the illusion of two actors, though the quick-speaking Wasikowska, as the twins’ flighty, mercurial object of desire, in some ways has the subtlest task—and often steals scenes from her co-star(s).

Fading Gigolo is not an entirely coherent film. It is, for the right and wrong reasons, a distinctive and memorable one.

Basically, Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy? amounts to two men having a mellow discussion about the nature of ideas; it’s formally limited, yet wide-ranging in its material and ambitions. Call it a case of cognitive dissonance.

Ultimately, American Promise seems split between a personal perspective and a broader one. It’s a bold experiment that’s also a textbook case of filmmakers being too close to their material.

The Lunchbox ultimately registers as a too-hesitant portrayal of hesitancy, and its pleasures are largely incidental.

The scowling Pitt proves no match for the Tony-winning Arianda, whose brassy, thick-accented positivity could probably cut down the gangsters as mercilessly as any gun. While the pair is robbing the mob, she’s stealing the movie.

The movie maintains a relentless grip all the same. Unlike the junior kingpins who bear witness to the film’s big blaze, audiences won’t watch in a passive state.

All of McKay’s movies improve on repeat viewings, as they become familiar and meme worthy. If Anchorman 2 seems hit-and-miss now, there’s a significant chance that it will get funnier over the long haul.

Rush, in other words, is a foursquare sportsmanship movie, offering little in the way of surprises but plenty of earnest, satisfying thrills.

This is all fascinating for art-history buffs, and while a documentary is the ideal vehicle for illustrating Jenison’s process, Tim’s Vermeer plays more like an extended PBS special than it does a movie.

After establishing a jaunty tone with its candy-colored, Saul Bass–style opening credits, the film racks up a high strain-to-laugh ratio; there’s a sense Almodóvar can’t quite keep track of all his gags.

The Raid 2 takes a substantially different tack from that of its 2011 predecessor, adding a convoluted plot and only intermittently attending to the sort of acrobatic ass-kicking for which the original became a global smash.

Despite its modest proportions and chilling finale, Sal is foremost an affectionate tribute, conjuring ample warmth out of relatively little.