Leonard Klady

A richly realized piece of Masterpiece Literature, director Darrell James Roodt's Cry, the Beloved Country has an admirable high polish. But more effort could have been made to address its underlying message and provide an emotional punch to equal the book's resonance.

A sweet, funny anarchic pastiche that should find broad based popularity. Its sly combination of the outrageous and the mundane is a surprisingly appealing screen entertainment that transcends the one-joke territory it inhabited on television.

While the picture is often pure delight, and constantly inventive and engaging, ultimately it is not up to the highest standards of the troupe. [25 Feb 1996, p.47]

But where others have sunk in the mire of imitation, director Paul Anderson and writer Kevin Droney effect a viable balance between exquisitely choreographed action and ironic visual and verbal counterpoint.

Director Bill Duke renders the period saga with passion, but lacks the sort of fluid, organic style the material requires; the film falls short of its aim for mythic proportion. Still, there's a vibrancy that's engrossing, if uneven.

It's a death-defying hodgepodge anchored by the complete confidence of star Carrey.

Grumpier is a welcome continuation that leaves you wanting for another chapter that's as rich in humanity and fun as the initial companion pieces.

After an eight-year series hiatus, Bride of Chucky emerges with recharged batteries and a mordantly funny edge that's attuned to the dawning millennium. [19 Oct 1998]

A ruthlessly clever yarn about small fries vs. big biz, this winning comedy serves up a hearty helping of fun and wholesome values that will ring up appetizing sales at the box office.

Lumet never tires of exploring moral quandaries. But what separates his films from the pack is his appreciation for all perspectives.

Director Jon Turteltaub has a smooth style suited to classic farce and knows just how to pace the material to accentuate the positive.

While emotionally intense, it's neither hurried nor charged with false drama. It's also one of the most handsome of recent films, with sterling work by cameraman John Toll and production designer Lilly Kilvert.

This chilling look at emergency room politics wrestles contemporary medical ethics to an unsatisfactory draw. Similarly, its mix of real and exaggerated situations doesn't quite jell, making for a commercial diagnosis that's good but not great.

Part homage, part spoof, the deft balancing act is a clever adaptation -- albeit culled from less than pedigreed source material.

Despite fine work from his actors and smooth technical polish, the more provocative elements of the tale arise awkwardly and grate against the early section's almost whimsical nature.

It’s an effective, if predictable paranoid fantasy. The film’s social statement may be hopelessly muddy, but its adroit sense of fun and thrills cannot be discounted.

It’s relatively foolproof light entertainment, undone only when it strays too far into the absurd or wears the mantle of Wayans’ comedy persona.

Poetic Justice is a hermetic inner-city love story elevated by resonant social commentary.

Overall, Maddin’s first effort with seasoned performers is extremely promising, and he continues to grow as a visual craftsman. But he’s in need of better material to develop the unique film voice his past films promised.

Audiences will be confused by what the picture is not. It’s not really about Cobb or baseball or a bygone era. It’s neither character study nor historic drama. It’s ambitious but oblique and unfocused, and only the most generous of viewers will forgive its numerous lapses and vagaries. The film’s prospects of breaking out of a specialized niche are remote.

The script is constructed too much like a novel, which slows the pace of the early, establishing sections. Director Bill Condon works too hard to tie all the plot strands into a neat bow.

Abetted by the piercing images of lenser Christopher Doyle, the picture has a vivid, nightmarish quality that's more inviting than repellent. But the filmmaker mutes the impact by repeatedly cutting away to other settings, as if he lacked confidence in the power of the moment.

Though it’s little more than a one-joke premise, director Michael Lehmann gets maximum mileage from the low-octane script by Rich Wilkes. Wisely, there’s minimal interest accorded the narrative, with emphasis on the off-kilter characters and their social milieu.

There's demonstrable growth in his visual and narrative skills here but the writer/director isn't likely to expand his audience with the sometimes oblique, unnerving saga of interwoven lives whose paths cross with alternately comic and tragic results.

City Hall comes awfully close to delivering the goods within a fast-paced thriller framework. At its best, the picture conveys the visceral energy of city politics, in which problem-solving is more common than air. The dilemma for the film is that there are no happy endings, just reelection promises that have as much substance as ether.

Quite simply, It Takes Two is just too cute for words.

A warm, comic "what if" yarn, it's rife with humor and sentimentality but is just one run away from the game-winning score.

This is a vanity production parading as a social statement. It nonetheless has enough sound, fury and flash to satisfy the action crowd who have propped up Seagal’s career.