Elise Nakhnikian

The actors create emotionally coherent and sympathetic characters from a collection of often contradictory, monumentally irresponsible, or just plain improbable actions.

Paolo Virzì's Human Capital gives the tired trope of cutting between overlapping stories a welcome shot of adrenaline, using it not just to compare and contrast tangentially related stories, but to show how people caught up in their private dramas can overlook or misinterpret the people around them.

The film is a debater with some interesting points to make but no overall argument to contain them.

Relevant facts about each character are dutifully punched out, in earnest speeches or actions that are often wildly overdrawn.

In Lucía Puenzo's film, things always feel off balance even as the plot points click all too neatly into place.

Even at 74 minutes, the documentary comes to feel arduous in its recycling of the same points and imagery, the filmmaking as plodding as its subject is polished.

The film is a thinly dramatized series of arguments against, then ultimately in favor of the medication of bipolar disorder.

It keeps the entrances, exits, and misunderstandings rolling while rooting the action in emotions and character traits that are only slightly exaggerated for comic effect.

It intriguingly invites us to think about the mundane forces that can drive a seemingly ordinary guy like Mohamed to do something so desperate and cruel as piracy.

This "Buddhist film noir," as writer-director Pen-ek Ratanaruang calls it, is surprisingly slow-moving and soulful for a film full of double-crosses and cold-blooded killing.

Warren Beatty's portrayal of Howard Hughes has the overly polished feel of an anecdote that's been told too often.

The chemistry between Pacino and his cast mates gives this lightly amusing contrivance surprising emotional resonance.

Its feminist perspective checkmates the frat-boy misogyny and machismo that too often mar films set in combat zones.

The film doles out a shock or hits a (usually hollow) emotional note every few minutes with mechanical precision.

This is a complication-smoothing take on Jesse Owens's elegant riposte to Hitler's racism at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The film is rife with tired food metaphors and plot twists so predictable you see them coming like travelers on the poplar-lined street that leads to the dueling restaurants.

The Panamanian-born Roberto Duran's story has all the makings of a fascinating film, but Hands of Stone isn't it.

Uses the perils of immigrating to this country without papers as a backdrop for a poor white American woman's bumpy path to enlightenment.

The film's ruefully honest tone is periodically drowned out by the blare of stagey coincidences.

Israel Horovitz's film is basically a three-character play without a single character you can believe in.

Like its predecessor, the film is a charming example of what great actors can do with mediocre material.

A Bourne movie turned just askew enough to be funny, American Ultra trains a bemused eye on a trope ripe for a ribbing.

The film is a study of grief that drowns in a cold bath of grim self-pity.

Most of the film's characters are unconvincing, flattened out by Charlie's self-focused lens.

The frequent contemptuousness the film displays toward its characters keeps the audience at arm's length.

The film has a shambling charm that actively disputes an unspoken notion that a documentary must be well-structured in order to effectively land its points.

Jared Hess's film turns out to be a succession of failed jokes punctuated by a few cathartic laughs.

It comes as no surprise that writer-director Vincent Grashaw wrote the first draft of this movie soon after graduating high school.