Hal Hinson

All Jimmy wants is for his life to return to normal. But Price and director Barbet Schroeder haven't done a very good job of letting us know who this guy is—or even what normal is to him. Schroeder also shifts back and forth between a tone of earnest homage to the mood and feel of the classic thriller to one that sends up the genre, laughing slyly behind its back.

A marvelous breakthrough, a film of incantatory intensity and moment by a prodigiously gifted young filmmaker.

One of the loopiest, most hysterical family-values movies ever made.

The movie turns maudlin in the end, but still, nothing matters except the jokes. And Streep. She skates through the picture, unscathed by its lapses, glorying in her chance to strut her comic stuff. This alone is cause for celebration. Tragedy's loss is comedy's gain.

The movie's sense of humor is brash and shaggy, and Rita does have a couple of fliply delivered comebacks. But on the whole, there's not enough variety or definition to hold your attention. Too much is all on the same pitch.

The movie is modest and winning, and we almost feel guilty for wanting it to be more -- but we do. The spirit of camaraderie and the love of performers performing is infectious, though. It may not be enough, but it's close.

Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the film is its fluid, unhurried pace. Rich and his team aren't interested in roller-coaster effects or sledgehammer manipulations. They have a lush, original sense of color, even a flair for the poetic. The score -- by lyricist David Zippel and composer Lex de Azevedo -- isn't terribly distinctive (it's probably the movie's weakest link), but there is a merciful absence of the hard sell in that area as well.

Ferrara is clearly drawing an equation between the criminals' actions and The Lieutenant's, and as trite (and potentially shameless) as this may sound, it actually works.

As the movie progresses, it becomes less interesting. There are some striking performances from the supporting cast, particularly Steven Berkoff's rabid portrayal of a rival gang lord. The rest of the film, in fact, could have benefited from a little of his mad-dog ferocity. As heroes, the Krays are more shadow than substance; they're stuck in metaphor.

Madonna, the real Madonna, is precisely what "Truth or Dare" promises to deliver, raw, kissing-close and uncensored. But what we get in this sometimes engrossing, sometimes appalling, always entertaining film is something other than "real," something that may in fact be just as revealing as the real thing itself.

Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a wondrous feat of imagination. In terms of sheer inventiveness, it makes the other movies around these days look paltry and underfed. The worlds Gilliam has created here are like the ones he created in his animations for Monty Python -- they have a majestic peculiarity. And you're constantly amazed by the freshness and eccentricity of what is pushed in front of your eyes.

Nothing in the first Gremlins came close to being as bad as these early segments in the second one, and because the concept is no longer fresh, and the suspense over what's going to happen is lost, we're ready for the filmmakers to get on with it long before they've finished setting the table.

In The Rookie, Eastwood's new buddy movie about a couple of cops in the auto theft division, Clint teams up with Charlie Sheen, and he couldn't be more naked in his attempts to connect with a younger generation of moviegoers if he laced up a pair of Reebok Pumps.

Linklater's control seems all but invisible here. But this kind of stylistic lucidity can only be the result of determined calculation and planning. The kind of happy accidents he captures don't come about by accident.

This is a rare kind of pulp; it's boisterously destructive, funny and, at the same time, almost serene.

It's an obscure experience, partly alienating, partly enthralling; it weaves a spell that is frightening, irritating and invigorating all at once.

Ultimately, La Scorta is a tight, competent but rather inconsequential thriller. It's diverting, but thin. (Review of Original Release)

Davis's sensibility is much more fully developed, more authentic and much less self-consciously referential than the Coens' was at the same stage. She's not just playing around with film noir, or paying homage to it -- she's using it for a new kind of edgy, grunge realism; using it to look at sex and love and murder; using it for real.

It's not a challenging movie or an original one, but it does have its pleasures -- most notably a radiant, soulful debut performance from Driver, who saves Circle of Friends from being merely an Irish ugly duckling story.

Director Frank Oz has brought a devilish tang to the machinations here, and the actors bring a sense of a spoiled grandeur to their characters' mingy souls.

Freeman lays out the father-son dynamics with great skill and very little fuss. There's no hysteria in his approach; instead, he sticks to the facts, relying on his cast to provide the emotion. The result is a surprisingly powerful, insightful film. The dramatic curve of the narrative may not seem entirely fresh, and some of the characters are simplistic, but the movie still gets to you.

Douglas again takes on the symbolic mantle of the Zeitgeist. But in Falling Down, he and Schumacher want to have their cake and eat it too; they want him to be a hero and a villain, and it just won't work.

With Avalon, Levinson reaches into his deepest self, and an artist can't be asked to do much more.

It is a serious and, at times, moving film, and it deserves serious analysis.

As a celebration of ephemera, the movie is a mixed bag, sometimes hilarious, sometimes tiresome.

It's a lovely idea, and if the individual sections of the film were more substantial, or if we sensed some connection between them, some governing principle, it might have resulted in a delicate, poetically funny movie. Unfortunately, Jarmusch's lackadaisical minimalist aesthetic and his chronic lack of energy are the only unifying elements.

Actors here perform admirably, though they seem not to know exactly what they're supposed to be playing and so they are reduced to giving us mere moments. But playing these characters would be impossible anyway. They're like composites constructed out of cross-section surveys of baby boomers, and Lumet leaves out any notion of personal psychology or motive. It's as if his characters acted only in response to generational forces.

This is a spectacularly well-made thriller. It is an odd thing, really -- the movie is sexy and at the same time a warning about the costs of sex.