Manuel Betancourt

Aiming to be a gripping survival thriller, 65 rarely surprises. With only two characters to speak of, the stakes feel decidedly low.

Led by an against-type performance from Ben Foster, writer-director Jason Buxton’s languidly paced psychological thriller about domesticity and masculinity may be handsomely mounted but ultimately strikes an all too hollow tone to land its kicker of a final shot.

Aiming to be a tense drama about trust, the film struggles to balance the personal and cultural stakes at the heart of its neat conceit.

Ultimately, though, Before We Forget feels much too tidy (didactic, even) in how it unfolds for it to land the emotional gutpunch it so wants to deliver.

Telling a straightforward tale about this queer-skewing business, “All Man” opens up inquiries on how masculinity has been packaged for the American consumer, straight and gay alike.

While others may find in this visually arresting outer space drama a probing meditation on grief and marriage (not to mention human alienation writ-large), I never did warm up to this Colby Day-penned character study, finding it much too caught up in its own ambitions to make its emotional beats pay off.

Mark Waters’ Mother Of The Bride, a Thailand-set romp featuring Brooke Shields as the mother in question, is not so much a misfire as a blatant example of how a formula deployed with little to no charm ends up feeling bland—lifeless, even.

The film is often so hurried or so preoccupied with what’s to come that it ignores what’s happening in the moment.