Mark Jenkins

As humane as it is disturbing.

The filmmakers keep trying to make Will appear paranoid, but he’s not fooled for long — and most viewers won’t be, either.

Taking its cues from the religious severity of the community in which it’s set — and the London weather — Lelio’s latest film is austere, deliberate and rather chilly.

Amusing and even edifying, although it is also unlikely to make converts out of those who just don’t get Zappa’s pastiche of juvenile parody and sophisticated songwriting, derived from rock, jazz and 20th-century experimental music.

A Woman in Berlin doesn't justify retribution, but in such moments it does clarify the horrible logic of vengeance.

An evocative overview of anti-gay hysteria in the 1960s, a period when homosexuality was illegal in every state except Illinois.

In My Father’s House offers lots of interesting raw material, but it could use a disinterested observer’s remix.

The movie's storytelling can be as old-fashioned as its appearance. Some sequences are quick and messy, but others are grand and theatrical.

One thing Doueiri didn't get from Tarantino is smirky attitude; The Attack is sad and resigned, but also tender.

The Pirogue spends only about an hour on open water, but that's enough to convey the risks that make the trip foolish, and the desperation that makes it inevitable.

In giving equal weight to all subjects, “Older” flirts with triviality.... But Fegan punctuates some commonplace observations with more peppery ones.

Set to Jeremy Turner's spare and mournful score, Narco Cultura is ultimately more pensive than lurid.

As the wily leader of the Japanese forces, grizzled Kurata Yasuaki has more presence than Zhao, who’s bland in non-action sequences. But Zhao’s ability to deliver dialogue is less crucial than his skill at leading hundreds of extras through elegantly choreographed, sumptuously photographed chaos.

Autism aside, writer-director Rachel Israel’s debut film is a fairly typical, low-budget New York romance, complete with an excursion to Coney Island. What distinguishes it are Israel’s empathetic characterizations — she’s known Polansky for 15 years — and the winning performances, not only by the leads but also by the supporting players.

The documentary adroitly demonstrates that Robert Fisk is still motivated by the boyish curiosity that drew him to journalism.

Kore-eda is himself a father now, which may explain why his work has gotten sunnier.

Would be more satisfying if it were a more definitive look at Guantanamo's workings. All Cote and Henriquez can provide is some glimmers of insight about just one of the men held there. But that's enough to make their movie enlightening, compelling and, finally, heartbreaking.

Arguably the most dynamic Asian action film since the 1990s peaks of John Woo and Tsui Hark, The Raid: Redemption works as sheer gladiatorial ballet.

This lack of generosity toward the supporting players is one of the movie’s major weaknesses. The other is that the episodic story leads to no significant discovery, either narrative or psychological.

Enzo Ferrari was a real person, not just a narrative device. No matter how ardently he sang of speed and danger, there must have been more to his character than Ferrari manages to find.

Austrian documentarian Michael Glawogger's Whore's Glory is no "Pretty Woman." But neither does it qualify as an expose.

The movie revisits the themes (and some of the same characters) of Amy Berg's chilling 2006 chronicle "Deliver Us from Evil." But it reaches further, expanding from one American diocese to Ireland, Italy, the Vatican and the career of the current pope.

Jesse's nobility is one of the primary reasons Liberal Arts is so hard to take.

Two things distinguish writer-director Elegance Bratton’s lyrical debut feature from its predecessors: a clanking, droning, energizing score by experimental rock band Animal Collective and a central character — based on Bratton himself — who’s Black and gay.

Herman's House would benefit from more background material on Wallace, notably about the alleged weakness of the murder rap against him. In the end, though, neither Sumell nor the film is concerned with that. Their goal is to make palpable — and palpably horrific — the fact of living 23 hours a day in caged isolation.

Big Star was essentially Chris Bell's band, and emotionally, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is Bell's movie. Joining rock's dead-at-27 club via a 1978 car crash, he left behind a fine, then-unreleased album and two siblings who tell his story movingly. As they recount his final years, the sadness in Bell's songs comes to seem eerily prescient.

Fremont has the demeanor of a kitchen-sink drama but is laced with deadpan absurdism.

Any film about a flashy criminal threatens to glamorize its protagonist, but both Mesrine episodes are careful to detail the many goofs made by the crook and his accomplices.