Frank Scheck

Shot over four years in Kenya, the film boasts an undeniable authenticity, thanks to its filmmakers' quarter-century of experience making wildlife films in Africa. And while elephants are naturally camera-friendly subjects, their behavior here is captured with a particularly impressive immediacy.

What it has going for it in spades is supremely creepy atmosphere. The hospital virtually becomes a major character in the story itself, its washed-out coloring and neon lights making everyone look like they have a sickly pallor.

It would, after all, take a sleuth of Hercule Poirot-like talents to discern what attracted these supremely talented (not to mention, in the case of one of them, Oscar-winning) thespians to such lame, cliched material.

It can't be denied that Gift occasionally borders on being too New Agey for its own good, and, let's face it, its entire ethos can be boiled down to the simple phrase "Pay it forward." But don't be surprised if you're compelled to perform an unexpected act of generosity soon after seeing it.

Unfortunately, it all plays out in completely tedious fashion, having all the urgency of watching someone having an impassioned argument with their medical insurance representative.

Mister America proves a witless, one-note political satire whose deficiencies are even more glaring when such humor feels entirely redundant to our current state of affairs.

While that personal connection lends an undeniably poignant aspect, the film never quite fully captures the essence of the enigmatic legal and political fixer.

The Parts You Lose somehow manages to be both unmoving and tension-free, wasting the talents of several notable actors in the process.

The two elements never mesh convincingly, proving neither substantial enough to work as compelling drama nor sufficiently suspenseful as action-thriller.

Collisions all but screams "Issue Movie," and is extremely unlikely to reach anyone but the already convinced.

Celebration ultimately resembles more of a snapshot than a fleshed-out portrait, but it's one that's likely to linger in your memory for a long time afterwards.

This tale of a teenage gang of petty criminals whose alliance becomes fractured by a surprisingly big haul doesn't generate any real suspense and lacks the depth of characterization to make up for it.

In the Tall Grass is at least impressive on a technical level. Cinematographer Craig Wrobelski manages to find every conceivable way to make tall grass visually ominous, with Mark Korven's spooky score and the ambient sound design making valuable atmospheric contributions as well.

Blumhouse has certainly proved very successful with its inventive, low-budget approach to horror, but now that the company is spewing out movies like an assembly line, more and more duds are starting to appear. Everything about this effort, including its hackneyed, overfamiliar title, smacks of laziness and a cynical indifference to its lack of originality.

To paraphrase an old joke, this raucous alta kocker comedy, about a long-married Jewish couple experiencing a day from hell, isn't really very good. And the running time is so short! But the film is impossible to entirely dislike nonetheless.

It's certainly an imaginative concept for a detective story, but the storyline gets so convoluted and baroque that unintentional humor sets in. By the time we learn the outlandish motivation of the time-traveling serial killer and her true identity, the twists have been coming so fast and furious that we've long stopped caring.

The documentary, largely alternating between scenes of the poets engaging in freewheeling conversations and performing their works, comes to feel talky and claustrophobic at times (cinematographer Peter Eliot Buntaine keeps his camera uncomfortably close). But it gains urgency as it goes along.

The film's relentless artiness ultimately proves more off-putting than involving, distancing us from what should be a harrowing tale.

Auggie is purposefully grim in style and execution, moving at a snail's pace and seemingly photographed in drab shades of gray. Although its running time is a mere 81 minutes, the pic seems to last forever.

The character deserves better, and so does the audience.

The high-wire tonal balancing act proves a little wobbly at times, resulting in a film that is feels less than the sum of its parts. But some of those parts work very well, providing moments of uncomfortable hilarity and genuine poignancy.

Its largely Hispanic cast and extensive Puerto Rico locations lend a unique quality to Paul Kampf's prison drama starring Laurence Fishburne as a morally corrupt warden. Unfortunately, those elements are the only original aspects of this turgid exercise in prison movie clichés which doesn't even manage to be convincing as melodrama. Although certainly well-meaning in its condemnation of capital punishment, Imprisoned is too dully executed to achieve its desired impact.

A moving and powerful portrait of trauma and recovery, Cracked Up will likely prove as therapeutic for many viewers as it clearly is for Hammond himself.

Although stylishly made and featuring a compelling lead performance by Trevor Long (Netflix's Ozark), Seeds never takes root.

While this effort from filmmaker Steven Lewis Simpson (who serves as director, producer, cinematographer, editor and co-screenwriter) is somewhat lacking in technical polish, it boasts an undeniable emotional power and authenticity. Much of that stems from the casting of Dave Bald Eagle in the pivotal role of a Lakota elder.

Striving to be an inspirational story about personal and professional redemption, the film mainly comes across as a self-aggrandizing promotional project that the famously arrogant pop star would have once sneered at.

Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel emerges as a messy hybrid that has some interesting and amusing moments but ultimately feels as inauthentic as the team it chronicles.

While The Last Photograph ultimately feels too narratively slight to justify even its brief 85-minute running time, the intriguing film demonstrates that the actor should follow in his legendary father's directorial footsteps more often.