Derek Elley

Solidly entertaining for those who like their dialogue crisp and with a main verb in every sentence.

Deeply felt but dramatically unconvincing "fictional documentary" -- inspired by the March 2006 rape and killings by U.S. troops in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad -- has almost nothing new to say about the Iraq situation and can't make up its mind about how to package its anger in an alternative cinematic form.

Brings nothing new to the table, and spends far too long making the audience think it will.

Boasting the same refreshing avoidance of CGI and wire work as "Warrior," slickly made production (largely by the same team) is more consciously aimed at the international market, with its Australian setting and multilingual dialogue.

A generally entertaining piece of fluff that's kept afloat by a weathered cast including Fabrice Luchini and Roschdy Zem.

A polished genre piece with superior fright elements.

Though solidly crafted, with a host of well-etched performances, film is unable to establish a consistent, engaging tone.

Film plays as a quirky Brit riff on everything from U.S. slasher pics to revenge oaters but without Meadows' usual psychological complexity.

An embarrassing failure at almost every level.

An extremely silly but effective enough romp for family audiences.

A slowly inspiring saga of blood, sweat and horse dung, played with conviction.

Amos Gitai's most satisfying pic since war drama "Kippur." Schematic set-up is given a human face by fine performances and a physical journey that's often more interesting than the characters' emotional ones, which are weakened by the Israeli auteur's tendency toward convenient doctrinaire-ism and chunks of expository dialogue.

An astonishing improvement on the original version. With 27 minutes excised, pic emerges from its mind-numbing undergrowth as a memorable -- if still highly specialized -- exercise in personal, '70s-style American filmmaking, with a cohesive feel and rhythm that marks Gallo as a distinctive indie talent.

At heart, Best Men is a modest picture that harks back in many ways to U.S. movies of the late ’60s and early ’70s in its unconventional attitudes and anti-establishment tone. Pacing never lingers, and, unlike in Guncrazy, there’s no narrative fat; at the same time, there isn’t much emotional residue either. In short, it’s simply a quality B movie.

Neeson growls his way through the functional dialogue as an unstoppable killing machine in impressive, cold-eyed style.

A drama of impeccable intentions flawed by arch dialogue and only OK direction.

A sexy, good-looking political bodice-ripper with an almost flawless cast at the top of its game.

Like a tragic overture played at the wrong tempo and slightly off-key, Woody Allen's London-set Cassandra's Dream sends out more mixed signals than an inebriated telegraphist.

The most emotionally satisfying pic to date by Korean iconoclast Kim Ki-duk.

Chinese thesp Gong Li goes for a striking career makeover in Zhou Yu's Train, a sensual, slickly packaged slice of Euro-style metaphysical cinema centered on a free-thinking woman and the two men in her life.

Using the familiar device of cuisine as a metaphor for national identity and personal feelings, bitter-sweet pic about a man torn between his ethnicity (Greek) and the country of his birth (Turkey) makes its points lightly and entertainingly, with only a routine third act letting down the package.

A risky idea only occasionally gets both wheels off the ground in "The Theory of Flight," a sometimes wryly amusing, oftimes dramatically awkward story

Chained to the floor by a script that isn't particularly funny, direction that goes for realism rather than stylization and an almost complete lack of comic timing.

A haunted-house one-trick pony.

Super-slick street-racing pic, based on a Nipponese manga series and set in Japan, is aimed squarely at the East Asian market, which it has conquered in spades since late June release.

Mixes a rites-of-passage story with political and sexual elements to solid but finally uninvolving results.

A generally entertaining but rather old-fashioned romantic comedy.

Though the script never makes a convincing case for the lads as '90s Robin Hoods, it's restlessly inventive, with a pleasant, rather than rib-cracking, humor and likable touch of naivete.