Leonard Klady

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.

Bogosian provides some much-needed comic relief to the slogging tale. He turns in solid work, as does Everett McGill as his head strongman, but they and others are saddled with pedestrian dialogue and motivation.

Apart from its appealing young cast and period score, it has precious little to entice audiences into movie theaters.

Ultimately, it’s the film’s sly irony that sets it a notch above similar actioners. The Thomas brothers’ script repeatedly draws us down dead-end alleys only to reverse expectations and top white-knuckle situations with thrilling conclusions.

Though somewhat overplayed and coy about its destination, the film packs a helluva wallop.

The criminal activity onscreen in “Bulletproof” is penny ante compared with the felonious slaughter of story, character and logic exacted by the pic’s filmmakers.

Ultimately, its message is the familiar "there's no place like home." But rather than creating a modern "Wizard of Oz," this noble misfire just barely manages to pull back the curtain and reveal the man manipulating the image.

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.

The brief, meteoric, tragic life of martial arts star Bruce Lee forms the basis of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. The film is an unlikely pastiche of traditional biography, Hollywood saga, chopsocky set pieces and inter-racial romance. Seemingly contrary elements and styles nonetheless mesh into an entertaining whole and the result proves extremely touching and haunting.

The direction and technical elements are obvious, bright and vapid, while the performers struggle against staggering odds to provide nuance.

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.

The screenplay, however, denies the film a solid foundation. Jumanji is diverting in a splashy , eye-catching manner, but is about as substantive and durable as filigree.

The verite of this saga of Generation X is that it is no more fierce than a peck. "Reality Bites" begins as a promising and eccentric tale of contemporary youth but evolves into a banal love story as predictable as any lush Hollywood affair.

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

The picture’s problem is that it is small in every way. It’s modestly budgeted, and boasts a simple, unflamboyant story. Its score is bland and nondescript, the performers are scrubbed, and everything is tied up in a neat, white bow.

Loud and flamboyant, pic takes a few shots at societal sacred cows but more often misses the target. The effort comes off much in the prankish manner of a student film. “Freaked” thumbs its nose at the status quo, but few will find themselves on the filmmakers’ side when the last laughs are counted.

Bopha! is a heartfelt and anguished cry. Though moored in historic/geographic specificity, it is an easily understood and universal tale.

A wry thriller with a keen edge, Red Rock West is a sprightly, likable noirish yarn. Centered on a case of mistaken identity, the internecine plot becomes progressively more complex without losing its sense of fun.

The dialogue has the crispness of aging lettuce, and the situations rely on coincidence, disbelief and a singular disregard for character.

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 an exceedingly well directed, cleverly filmed and edited, tension-filled affair. It is also a wholly preposterous, muddled, paranoid's view of the inner-city nightmare where the slightest misstep is sure to have a fateful result.

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.

Typical action fare for martial arts star Steven Seagal and, in his limited oeuvre, one of the more entertaining efforts. But the genre is pedestrian, and Seagal makes no new moves here in terms of screen personality or acting skill. What fun there is lies in the villains, some nifty stunts and a bouncy musical score rife with regional sounds.