Hal Hinson

In Kansas, Andrew McCarthy and Matt Dillon have a way of taking pages of dialogue and making it sound like ... pages of dialogue.

Roxanne is the most unabashed, and most satisfying, romantic movie to come along in years. It's a swooning, delicate, heart-on-its-sleeve work. And so fulsome is its tenderness and naivete' that it requires a leap of imagination from the viewer to get on its wavelength. Few recent movies, though, reward the stretch as this one does.

Hill evokes the great westerns of the past—in particular "Shane" and "My Darling Clementine"— but his approach is essentially postmodern. Though Hickok is a hero from another century, his plight is thoroughly contemporary.

[Shelton's] direction here is fluid and energetic; he's got the juice for the straightaways, and the control for tight corners too. But it's the inspired jabber that fuels the film.

The movie is like a Porsche outfitted with a lawn mower engine; there's not even enough juice to get the machine out of the driveway.

Coming to America isn't as aggressively awful as the "Cop" films or "The Golden Child," but at least in those films there was something to react to. In making Coming to America, Murphy seems to have set his sights on the lowest prize imaginable. He aspires to blandness.

Spielberg and Co. have finally made their Disney movie -- or better yet, their film version of a theme park at Disneyland. It's sort of like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "It's a Small World" rolled into one. It's a helluva contraption, and certainly one to be marveled at. It gives good ride.

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.

Too routinely formulaic to be anything more than modestly diverting. But as modest diversions go it cruises along at a reasonably brisk pace and, in the smaller details -- the off-in-the-margins doodling -- it has its rewards. [20 July 1988]

The movie is inventive, hilarious and, in its own sneaky way, moving.

Lee elevates herself from the lower echelon of mere international super-babedom to the loftier realm of pulp myth. She is "It" with an exclamation mark.

It's respectful but not particularly vigorous or enlightening.

While this sort of thing may have worked in the '30s, by today's standards it's half-baked.

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

Stylish, intelligent but rather soulless bit of moviemaking.

A glorious romantic confection unlike any other in movie history.

Oldman is the least inhibited actor of his generation, and as this deranged detective, he keeps absolutely nothing in reserve.

By the time the last out is called, the movie's shamelessness far outweighs its charms. Aimed at the minors, it's in a bush league all its own.

David Cronenberg's film version of David Henry Hwang's Tony Award-winning play, is no more successful in solving it than any other versions of this fantastic tale have been.... "The Crying Game" it's not. [09 Oct 1993]

Roger Spottiswoode's Air America is partly glorious, partly junk, but unfortunately not in equal parts.

For Kieslowski, subtlety is a religion. He hints or implies -- anything to keep from laying his cards on the table. With "Blue," you never feel he's shown his whole hand; not even after the game is over.

The Russia House doesn't sweep you off your feet; it works more insidiously than that, flying in under your radar. If it is like any of its characters, it's like Katya. It's reserved, careful to declare itself but full of potent surprises. It's one of the year's best films.

In Roger & Me, Moore's brand of slapstick reportage strikes the perfect balance between irony and sincerity; it's slyly deadpan and committed, democratic and kingly all at once. In the end, though, he winds up giving ironic credence to the swells at the Great Gatsby party who advise the laid-off workers to get out there and do something. He's shown what one man with a camera crew and a vision can do.

Little Nikita would be nothing without River Phoenix's hair. It's the most engaging, the most watchable thing in the film. It has body. It has character. It even has drama. In other words, it has everything that's missing from the rest of the picture.

What "Wild at Heart" feels like is a kind of housecleaning -- a disjointed collection of images and odd snatches of ideas that the director couldn't make room for anyplace else. They have no context, and as a result, no power to thrill or disturb.

The real root of the movie's problems may lie in the fact that Mamet has identified with the men of principle and De Palma with the scoundrels -- in other words, with Capone instead of the eagle-scout Ness.

This screwball comedy starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck isn't as well regarded as others in the genre, but even if it's not exactly top-drawer, it's still jazzy fun. [24 Dec 1987, p.D7]

The mere presence of the adorable baby star, in fact, seems to throw the whole film out of whack, making the picture play more like an inadvertent comedy than a thriller.