Geoff Berkshire

The script is executed with enough naturalism to ward off complaints of contrivance — all the way up to a tidy, but quite satisfying, denouement.

Tawdry but cripplingly self-serious, the second feature from Mora Stephens (a full decade after her little-seen, also politically themed debut “Conventioneers”) benefits from Patrick Wilson’s committed star turn.

This character-driven picture takes its time marinating in quiet conversations and Austin atmosphere, making the sudden jolts of violence all the more shocking when they land.

The Gallows isn’t without a certain amount of atmosphere, it simply feels borrowed wholesale. That would matter less with a better script, but the four main characters are paper-thin even by genre norms.

It’s too bad the film doesn’t provide a better sense of what makes the Belgian Malinois so uniquely suited to the battlefield, or find a way to pay more than lip service to the deep bonds developed between military men and animals.

For much of the running time, The Midnight Swim is effectively ambiguous, but Smith’s decision to play coy with the sisters’ backstories eventually frustrates.

Silver offers up a generally assured and compelling film here.

Watching an estimable quintet of character actors do their thing is the chief pleasure of Cut Bank.

The non-pro cast received their scenes one week at a time, and the choice lends their performances a compelling blend of discovery and authenticity.

“Lazarus” shamelessly steals from superior genre efforts and lacks any distinguishing traits beyond a wildly overqualified cast.

Veteran filmmaker Greg MacGillivray (“Everest”) seizes the opportunity with striking imagery, which goes a long way toward compensating for his frequently over-earnest messaging.

The breezily likable pic benefits from an underexposed topic and solid execution.

Headland demonstrated little interest in playing it safe with her previous film... But here she reins in that impulse almost too much, and Sleeping With Other People winds up both looking (with its adequate but unremarkable tech package) and often feeling like a run-of-the-mill studio comedy.

The Overnight invites the audience to keep guessing exactly who is seducing whom, and exactly where the temptations will lead, right up to its final few beats. Barely hitting 70 minutes before the credit crawl, this comedy successfully achieves a climax of its own that is equal parts exciting and frustrating.

Part teen romance, part awkward love triangle, part generational-clash portrait, and almost all powered by nostalgia, this warmly conceived dramedy will likely resonate strongest with audiences who have a direct connection to the story’s place and time.

Swanberg and co-writer Megan Mercier have crafted an incredibly generous film that wears its heart on its sleeve but never feels sappy or even sentimental.

Loitering With Intent is essentially a 75-minute hangout movie, which would work better if the characters were worth hanging out with.

Even a brisk running time, barely topping 80 minutes, is too long to ask audiences to stay in the company of these characters and their terrible self-inflicted predicaments.

The film’s haphazard structure and freewheeling arguments only serve to reinforce tired pothead cliches — it’s paranoid, prone to starry-eyed dorm-room philosophizing, and it doesn’t know when to quit.

The graceful camerawork, precise editing and high-quality animation still can’t disguise the lack of imagination that went into the overall conception and the repetitive sameness that creeps into every bind the penguins find themselves in.

Neither warm and fuzzy in the best holiday movie traditions, nor edgy and irreverent a la “Bad Santa” (coincidentally also co-starring Graham, to better effect), it’s something of a mystery what audience A Merry Friggin’ Christmas intends to serve.

Lapses in the screenplay are mitigated only slightly by the natural chemistry between Long and Rossum.

Sanchez’s thoroughly conventional approach here does little to elevate a dismally generic script from frequent collaborator Jamie Nash.

The Book of Life is undoubtedly stuffed with more business than its fleet, kid-friendly running time can properly handle. Yet Gutierrez’s confident delivery of the material remains so buoyant and passionately felt throughout that he almost gets away with it.

The sudsy quality of the production ensures all the performers look terrific, but aren’t given particularly impressive material to work with.

The goofiness is redeemed somewhat by a wickedly violent climax — the exclamation point at the end of a rather simple sentence.

Cheerfully exhorting imagination, creativity and bravery in children while demonstrating none of those virtues itself, The Hero of Color City proves to be a dispiritingly colorless feature-length babysitter.

Despite a game lead performance from smallscreen star Katie Cassidy (“Arrow”) as a young woman with multiple personality disorder and an incorrigible punk attitude, this latest low-budget outing from helmer John Suits simply doesn’t have the imagination or resources necessary to pull off its clumsy stabs at visual pizzazz.