J.R. Jones

Poirer and director Noam Murro have trouble bringing this to a satisfying climax, but the characters are credible and sharply observed and all four actors go to town.

Broomfield, whose celebrity exposés are known for their intrusiveness and innuendo, lost me with his gentle shower scene between an Iraqi woman and her husband; even if it wasn't invented, is it really any of our business?

Actually I quite enjoyed the film -- but how do I get rid of this awful discharge?

Malkovich is severely miscast as a heartless and conniving thug admired by the hero (apparently Charles Grodin was busy), and Hopper, in a paper-thin role, barely registers.

Whether or not she's alive is the question that's supposed to animate this ostensibly metaphysical horror movie, but thematic rigor mortis sets in long before the final reel.

A half-baked conspiracy subplot in the last third makes Carruth's knotty narrative even harder to follow, but this is still scary, puzzling, and different.

Overstays its welcome, but for mindless thrills you could do worse.

As clever as he is crude, Cohen alchemizes bad-taste comedy into Strangelovean satire.

Studded with terrorist attacks... Yet Malkovich never exploits these for action-movie thrills: in each instance the loss of life is terrible and the morality of the act is left treacherously ambiguous.

The consequent pain, anger, and confusion on all sides disrupts the standard martyrology of the genre and exposes the ordinary human wreckage that can follow even the most extraordinary acts of heroism.

The plot of this PG action thriller, a remake of the 2002 Danish film Klatretosen, is so full of holes that even middle schoolers might give it the raspberry, but a bigger problem is the three leads' lack of on-screen chemistry.

The movie's idea of funny is giving the two lovers identical moles bordering their upper lips.

Director Peter Kosminsky elicits such genuine performances from his talented cast that the film rarely strikes a false note.

Unfortunately, as in many such big-screen comic books, the backstory beats the hell out of the present-tense plot.

The voice-over narration by Bill Kurtis is a stroke of genius.

There’s no denying this is a coldly commanding tale in which Haneke’s signature obsessions--bourgeois control, sexual repression, emotional cruelty, cathartic violence--simmer quietly as subtext before bursting into the open in the final reels.

There are some striking visuals and Hartnett is a magnetic presence.

Nothing to see here, keep moving.

Johnston's childish, repetitive tunes prove that he's no Brian Wilson (or even Roky Erickson), which makes you wonder whether Feuerzeig is examining the singer's exploitation or participating in it.

Distributors are clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel with this flimsy exposé of presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The famously passive-aggressive musicians manage to keep any real drama offscreen; the overriding impression is of four people enduring each other long enough to get their retirement portfolios in order.

It's most entertaining for its stunt casting of movie stars as the president's family and advisers.

After nine years, Duffy has coughed up a sequel, and like the first movie it's energetic, proudly juvenile, and reverently derivative.

Manages to transplant the action to Chicago without completely ruining it, though the emotional impact is largely deflated by the change in cultures.

The panoramic backgrounds have a silky beauty, but the characters are cheaply rendered with doll faces, enlarged musculature, tiny joints, and clunky movement. It's like watching Max Headroom lead his people out of Egypt.

This second feature doesn't resonate with nearly as much power, but its suspenseful story of two generations of career criminals in the city's northerly Charlestown neighborhood has a similarly haunting quality.

Persuasively re-creates the experience of sailing aboard a British man-o'-war during the Napoleonic era, but its story never attains comparable grandeur.

The characters quickly succumb to stereotype.