Dennis Harvey

The result isn’t exactly a docudrama indictment like “Traffic,” a thriller a la “Sicario,” a plea for innocent victims, or a Tarantino-esque bloody crime comedy. Rather, Running With the Devil is all the above, confidently blending together many narrative and tonal elements into a surprisingly cohesive whole.

There’s an upbeat tenor to Desert Runners that develops real rooting value for the protags.

Marson’s lively narrative employs a lot of diverse voices as well as a surprising amount of archival footage in telling a story that’s ethically complex yet easy to follow.

While “Autopsy” lives up to its title, providing plenty of grisly medical gore, the forensics induce less squirming than the exacting yet playful way Ovredal keeps making us anticipate more unnatural acts as the Tildens realize something is seriously amiss.

The Amerindie annals are over-full of withdrawn male loners hoping to quirk or cathart themselves out of teenage purgatory. But like "Donnie Darko," "Thumbsucker" and a few others, The Wackness treads this familiar terrain with assurance and distinction.

This fast-paced, well-shot doc does place its finger on the quickening pulse of an ever-wider gap between liberalizing Western social values and the Orthodox sphere that believes they are antithetical to Judaism. It’s a painful divide, but one that Sabbath Queen helps keep at least partly in the realm of civil argument.

Leaves just an anecdotal impact, but handsome lensing, acoustic score and male leads’ playful rapport lend it gentle appeal.

Though the darker tonal shift toward the end is a bit jarring, director/scenarist Gilady demonstrates a deft, confident hand with the storytelling, cast and general packaging, and makes assertive use of the dramatic desert setting.

Docmeister Arthur Dong brings empathetic balance and emotional heft to the discord between fundamentalist Christian parents and their gay children.

An entertaining if hardly exhaustive overview of how the unlikely success came to be. The story it tells might easily have filled an engrossing documentary twice the length of this competent, not-particularly-inspired one.

The result is modest, but has an earned emotional payoff.

Minimally plotted but beautifully atmospheric nightmare.

This original if sometimes befuddling vision blurs the line between fiction and documentary elements, conventional storytelling and improvisational collage, all to oft-bracing effect.

The Book Thief has been brought to the screen with quiet effectiveness and scrupulous taste by director Brian Percival and writer Michael Petroni.

Cheerfully gory, derivative and silly, Bounty Killer aspires to nothing more or less than trashy fun for genre fans, and this umpteenth “Mad Max”-style dystopian actioner delivers on that modest but admirable score

A fascinating story, albeit with some missed opportunities in the telling.

While aspects verge on sitcom terrain, this tale of a pregnant small-town woman caught between a bad marriage and a risky affair is mostly as funny and charming as intended.

Actress Clea DuVall’s debut feature as writer-director is an ensemble piece that breaks no new ground in themes or execution, but is pleasingly accomplished on all levels.

A pleasant romantic drama that works best when focused on the romance -- or on the waves, since the principal characters spend a lot of time surfing.

A winning musical detective story about a failed, forgotten early '70s rocker.

The pileup of disasters is such that this tale might easily have been spun as some kind of grotesque comedy. But writer-director Christian Sparkes’ second feature plays it straight, narrowly evading viewer disbelief via strong principal performances and sufficiently urgent execution.

Has the built-in curiosity value of watching real people evolve on camera -- a fascination increased by subjects' original, variably sustained commitment to countercultural ideals.

There’s plenty of archival interview and concert footage here, in addition to that shot by the directing duo, edited together into a package as tight and ingratiating as the music itself — of which there is, naturally, a ton soundtracked.

Nevertheless, Babygirl has sufficient authenticity and charm as a summer-in-the-city miniature to easily hold attention, however modest its payoff.

Focusing on a rescue-and-rehabilitation organization and several youths it plucks from servitude, this is an involving indictment with enough individual human-interest elements to avoid being too much of a grim screed.

What at first looks like a heartwarming portrait of a highly blended modern family turns into a no less engrossing illustration of that situation's possible pitfalls in Off and Running.

The script by Roth, Lopez, and Lopez’s frequent collaborator, Guillermo Amoedo, giddily piles crisis upon crisis, with none of the customary mercy reserved for leading characters.

Deals in sometimes queasy areas of underage sexuality and emotional extremes; again, deftness and confidence ultimately put across a screenplay (this time by Anthony S. Cipriano) overloaded with sensational incident.

Cleverly complex, if not quite as scary or memorable as one might have hoped.

Sometimes first-person to a borderline-indulgent fault, docu still offers potent spur for discussion on the blurry line between forgiveness and tolerance toward terrorism.

A big-reveal thriller with surprises that really do surprise -- and are worth waiting for through an audaciously long buildup -- A Perfect Getaway finds writer-director David Twohy in popcorn form with a muscularity not seen since 2000's "Pitch Black."

Grant’s screenplay builds a Rube Goldbergian narrative of escalating, piled-up crises, from which she also engineers a just-credible-enough exit strategy.

This third feature for director Daniel Robbins is no delicate flower of cinematic art, but a lean and mean shocker that tells its tale of collegiate hazing run amuck with brute efficiency.

Another entertaining mix of agitpop, pranksterism and autobiography.

Hell House is a slice of contempo life many viewers will find bizarre and disturbing, not necessarily in the precautionary-moral way its subjects intend. Briskly paced docu is well handled in tech departments.

It’s a compelling tale, well cast and directed with vivid intensity by Ronnie Sandahl. Still, the somewhat frustratingly limited insight we get into our hero’s addled head may affect export prospects for a film that is more about psychology than athletics.

To the End keeps its large canvas entertaining and informative. Even so, it preaches enough to the choir that this documentary can hardly serve as an introduction for those belatedly coming to terms with its central issues.

It’s a handsomely crafted portrait overall, yet one whose middleweight content flatters the subject without ultimately quite doing him justice.

Haphazard as “Woman” can seem, it all somehow pulls together at last with a satisfying smack.

Just when you thought nothing new could be done with the undead, “The Cured” pulls off a fresh take on zombie terrain.

The film successfully mixes together a lot of things, from the waterfront tourist-town setting of “Jaws” to a general teen fantasy-adventure feel that tempers (without weakening) horror content variably redolent of “It,” “Fright Night” and myriad other predecessors. If originality isn’t a strong suit here, the film’s conviction and polish make that a minor sin.

Neither sexually explicit nor showily lyrical, Undertow nonetheless has a sensuous, romantic feel that balances same-sex love with an equally empathetic view toward the adoring, then bewildered, then enraged wife.

Primarily humorous in a believe-it-or-not fashion.

An unbeatable cast lends satisfying emotional texture.

Though not quite a slam-dunk — its sum impact is more pleasingly ingenious than indelible — Late Night With the Devil definitely reps a personal best for the Cairnses.

Transcends mere torture porn -- though there's plenty for the squeamish to squirm over here -- in its deftly controlled mix of empathy, grotesquerie and sardonic humor.

While not perfect, the psychological thriller is cleverly conceived and confidently executed enough to make for a fun ride, one that eventually takes the full plunge into bloody black comedy terrain.

Pace is sleek, airless and apt.

Offers a diverting package of surreal, rude stoner and pop culture-based humor that will delight youthful viewers while bewildering stray elders.

The grounding material here is with the elderly Vidal himself... Unfailingly witty and devastatingly insightful, he personifies that near-extinct species — the public intellectual.

This lean thriller doesn’t provide much food for thought, but it delivers a compact dose of extreme jeopardy.

A first feature for helmer Bradley King and co-scenarist BP Cooper (though the latter has produced several indies), Time Lapse works due to both their escalating pileup of well-thought-out complications and credible character psychologies nicely communicated by expert performances.

Even at two full hours, “Take Every Wave” must do a lot of condensing. Still, as ample and awesome as Hamilton’s exterior doings are, one gets something of a classic “authorized portrait” vibe here in that he’s not about to let us get too far into his head.

While Olds and Paul Felten’s screenplay requires some significant credulity leaps, The Fixer is flavorsome, engaging and unpredictable enough that one can give those gaps a pass, at least to an extent.

While seldom going for big laughs, the film never takes itself too seriously, allowing its story to occupy the realm of cineaste fantasy.

Thanks to Michell and a fine cast, it works admirably well — at least to a point, at which some viewers may feel [screenwriter Christian] Torpe piles on one crisis too many.

Those already well-versed in Georgia’s recent history will get the most from a series of real-life character sketches occasionally cryptic for their lack of contextualizing explanation. But the docu’s ample human interest and handsome lensing, despite much visual evidence of a struggling economy, will hold interest for most viewers.

The film's imaginative, diverse images create a mind's-eye urban claustrophobia; such intensity may exhaust over 85 minutes' course, but it's never less than impressive.

While written epilogues provide upbeat updates on the subjects’ endeavors, the overall impression is one of a draining uphill struggle for relatively little personal reward given the enormous stakes involved in the planet’s continued ecological destruction.

If The Dive’s final stretch feels a bit less urgent than what precedes it, one appreciates that the filmmakers did not pile on the usual melodramatic gotchas, hewing to a relatively realistic course of events.

The pic reveals itself as a horror-action-comedy a la "Evil Dead," with amusing twists of fate and over-the-top gore.

Good-humored but not campy in its regard of some genuinely fascinating research, and full of trippy visuals, this science-fair bonanza would have been a midnight staple in the era of “The Hellstrom Chronicles.”

The Passenger doesn’t quite transcend its basic creature-feature premise, yet it does make getting to a familiar destination more fun than many a similar enterprise has managed.

Kauffman has crafted an enjoyable armchair adventure that juggles the archival imagery, engaging present-day personalities and glimpses of the magnificent creatures themselves at a leisurely yet absorbing pace.

Those who seek neat narrative resolution to any mystery may leave underwhelmed. Still, the hard-won acceptance of uncertainty that Robinson and Howell allow their protagonist provides its own, more abstract satisfaction.

The occasional heavy-handed or clumsy elements don’t seriously impair a film whose high spirits, talented cast and luridly intriguing subject consistently entertain, even if they seldom truly surprise.

Not everything here works, including some lead casting. But this daylight noir should please viewers willing to roll along with a crime meller more interested in character quirks than action thrills.

Cohn handles all the performers very deftly.

While imperfect, Bloody Hell does entertainingly offer food for thought via an important overall point made in non-preachy form: Nature indeed does have room for variation in gender and sexual norms, no matter how loudly political or religious conservatives these days protest otherwise.

A slippery thesis doesn’t detract from the pleasures of this documentary from genre scholar and programmer Kier-La Janisse. She draws on alluring clips from more than 100 films, plus myriad interviews, to survey an alternately lurid and surreal cinematic (as well as television) field of mostly rural tales inspired by traditional superstitions and lore.

Genially cartoonish but also rather sweet.

An agreeable tone and cast make Sherman’s Way go down easy.

An amiable, fast-paced entry that should win over fans.