Deborah Young

Though convincingly set in the lower depths of Lima, the story embodies a universal truth about the experience of former soldiers in many times and places.

A film that lingers in the memory in spite of being rather irritating to watch.

This film is straight out of the bottle with no metaphoric or psychological pretensions.

On his first trip behind the camera, the British-Iranian Amini shows his skill at working with actors and sensing the way they can fill out literary characters. His screenplay generally feels more naturalistic than Highsmith, the dialogue less spare.

Surprising, disconcerting and droll, this Italo-Swiss co-prod packs the grotesquerie of an Ulrich Seidl film minus the sex, plus vivid acting. Its weakest link is on the narrative level.

As it explores the limits of human endurance, the pic should suck even landlubbers into a whirlpool of gripping adventure, overblown ambitions and sheer human folly.

This study in weathering adversity and adjusting to what life hands you makes some worthy points about human and institutional callousness.

Undeniably, Sunset is an impressive piece of filmmaking and from a technical point of view it stirs memories of the boldly shot Hungarian cinema revival of the Sixties.

While the exact secret to the film’s high-grossing recipe remains a bit of a mystery, it probably has to do with the good-humored chemistry between the unlikely partners, pushing the limits of censorship in the sexual-innuendo department, and a well-written off-the-wall script that makes audiences laugh out loud.

The buoyant little comedy 12:08 East of Bucharest puts its finger on the problem in the best tradition of East European humor, savvy but concrete, gentle but sharp as a knife.

After a tedious start building up the boys' lives and friendship, feature bow by Elmar Fischer becomes deeply engrossing in its second half, as the viewer learns of the hero's anguish and doubts.

A good old-fashioned British spy thriller.

The film is smart with a cool New York irony that is easy to get into, but it owes its principal fascination to the enigmatic Condola Rashad, the stage actress seen in Showtime’s Billions and Joshua Marston’s recent Come Sunday, and her multi-layered performance as a charismatic but mentally disturbed Iraq war vet.

Funny and always on-topic without going overboard, it’s an engaging film.

Cotillard’s performance is luminous throughout, enriching the willful heroine with the depth of a single obsession.

American Dharma is meant to leave its audience shaken, whatever side they’re on.

[A] forceful presentation of an ever-timely topic.

It’s pretty much a one-woman show for actress Erica Rivas, who brings a sense of fun to a fast-paced comedy about schizophrenia, if that’s what it is.

Those on both sides of the great Cuba divide should find food for thought in these sober, realistic reflections.

Although the story is not easy to follow, the anger behind it is so virulent that it sweeps the narrative along on a wave of rage and repulsion. A downer on this scale will not, clearly, be everyone's cup of tea.

Shot like the grunge version of a '50s noir thriller from France (or Soviet Georgia), the black-and-white 13 (Tzameti) turns into a shocker of Tarantino proportions in protracted sequences of explosive violence that leave viewers quaking.

The film has a winning combo of excitement and topicality.

What The Perfect Candidate lacks in sophistication it makes up for in intuition, entwining the longtime taboos of music (especially the female voice) and women's active participation in political life in a positive storyline.

Building slowly, the story morphs into a thriller, and finally a sort of horror film, though these parts feel more like decent imitations than real genre work.

Though the storyline is dirt simple and not particularly meaningful or involving, the action in this character-driven film is scintillatingly sexy.

The tense triangle among the girl and her two moms unfolds against an interesting backdrop: a stark setting in rural Sardinia, where tall cliffs and dirt roads criss-cross a shrub-infested desert. Its general wildness is underlined in the first scene at a local bronco-busting rodeo.

The whole project is saved largely thanks to the subtext of ethnic discrimination that runs through the film, and two riveting central performances, which overcome a wobbly start to find emotional balance by the final reel.

The sunny, soap-and-water characters and thoroughly upbeat message may not be the stuff great films are made of, but in Jackie & Ryan the modesty of the story, the simple story-telling and honest emotions all come together in a satisfying whole.