Marc Mohan

Humor and humanity keep The Boys Are Back from being a cloying mess.

Even if her turn in Bright Days Ahead feels overly familiar, especially after Deneuve's recent "On My Way," Ardant is still possessed of the same Gallic poise and presence, and generally a joy to watch.

The result calls to mind “Lord of the Flies” and “Children of Men,” even if the film’s second half is much less compelling than its first.

The ensemble can't bring enough, though, to overcome the unoriginal setup and predictable story arc.

Decent performances aside, the only interesting bits involve Geoffrey Rush as a chemistry professor who enables their self-abuse.

In a movie that strives to offend with every spat profanity and cruel insult, the most shocking thing about Bad Words is that it expects us to care about its main character at all.

The last time Jane Fonda acted in a French-language film, it was Jean-Luc Godard's radical 1972 effort "Tout Va Bien." It's fitting, then, that she fluently plays Jeanne, one of five aging leftists in this slight, but never frivolous, tale.

The parts of "Run Ronnie Run" that advance the minimal plot can be painful to sit through, but the jokes scattered along the side of the story often are hilarious. [19 Sep 2003]

While it's an effective memoriam for the well-meaning Germans whose lives were ruined by Hitler's mad dream, the refusal of Generation War to focus on any other sort of German makes it both dramatically and historically suspect.

A sometimes very funny movie made by very funny people.

The Killer Elite is possibly Bloody Sam's worst film, and the martial-arts-themed actioner is must-see material only for the director's completists, despite a cast that includes James Caan and Robert Duvall. [17 Jun 2005, p.43]

Binoche is her usual dependable self, bringing passion and fury to a familiar, but still compelling, character.

Overall, there's a patchwork quality to the movie, as if a batch of half-finished short stories were filmed before their time.

Rather like a four-hour episode of "Today": painless enough, leavening superficiality with substance, allowing you to watch and still do the laundry without missing anything vital.

The visual design of Mama is effective, at least in small, quick doses. But those are about all the positives for this example of why a solid audition reel doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to churn out a feature.

As far as the company Redford keeps, I liked it better when he hung out with Paul Newman and Sydney Pollack, but those days are long gone.

A bloodless film that aims for wry but leaves you merely asking "why?"

No matter how noble, not everyone's life should be made into a movie.