Nicolas Rapold

Shot in a present-tense vérité style, it stitches together micro-stories into a larger narrative in which negotiation can’t undo exploitation.

The film feels both hermetic and declarative, and it’s folly to constantly remind a viewer of Fassbinder’s impossible-to-replicate alchemy of color, lighting, angles and passion.

Lifted by the sepulchral Stephen McHattie as Lisa’s nemesis, the film’s frazzled thought experiment becomes an adequate yarn.

The movie, admirably shot on location, has a cast that is nonetheless directed without much verve by Wiebke von Carolsfeld. The film was adapted from a novel by Aislinn Hunter, but the characters’ inner lives remain elusive.

Most of the movie is a losing proposition.

Despite some nifty freak-outs, the movie’s buildup can lack a certain snap.

The movie doesn’t need to achieve the same levels of sensation as a wildly popular racing simulator, but it should convey excitement and dynamism in its own cinematic way. When the novelty of watching a gamer become a driver wears off, we’re left with an adequate racing drama in a medium built for so much more.

The naval collisions and melees play out in panel-like renderings that are bold and satisfying for the first half-hour but lack the momentum and bombastic je ne sais quoi of “300.”

The facts are more gripping than the filmmaking in Marco Amenta's routine docudrama about tenacious teen informer Rita Atria.

Mr. Borden, an acclaimed Canadian stage actor and playwright, turns in a slyly entertaining performance. But the relationship between Lake and Melvyn feels a bit more one-sided than perhaps was intended.

The film’s initial naturalism is warped by overheated film technique and a dead-ending screenplay.

Cronin thrills as ever to luscious gross-out scenes.

What pops more than the gunfire are the line readings, where Ms. Parker, especially, but also Mr. Malkovich and Ms. Mirren, can give personality to standard action repartee.

It’s a chronically underachieving movie, but relatively amusing in its quaint wish fulfillment.

Ms. Bagnall’s baffling story about a trio of oddball outsiders is stricken with a galloping case of romantic whimsy and falls short of its serio-comic aspirations.

King works to portray a tight mesh of relationships around Cole, directing Elizabeth Palmore’s valiant adaptation of the sensitively rendered Carter Sickels novel. But lacking a strong central performance from Ettinger — who gets stuck on a half-pained, half-exasperated setting — much of the movie feels like a series of comings and goings, entrances and exits.

The wish fulfillment of time travel tends to be fun to watch, and the director, Dean Israelite, feeds on the friends’ giddy escapades for a while.

Pathaan is in some ways a save-the-world superhero movie without suits, and while less self-serious, the hefty length can lag. More is not always better — though the gusto of Padukone speedskating to the rescue at one point goes a long way.

By not centering on the victims, Mr. Khalfoun nearly makes the film about pitying the panic-prone killer; the camerawork lacks the ominous, confident glide of much Steadicam horror.

It’s like a gently distressed company film blown up to feature length.

The movie (directed by Janeen Damian and written by Kirsten Hansen) skips over Maddie savoring the outcome of her wish, and shifts right into charming comedy around her confusion, including having no memory about how she got engaged.

Viewer beware: Between the uplift and the cringe, this movie may cause whiplash.

Despite some flourishes (such as a mirror-like crystal cave), “Transformania” feels locked into the routine rhythms of its plotting and makes one-note jokes out of its human incarnations.

The movie’s charms are limited by what comes to feel like a coddling conceit.

The story comes to feel mild (and incomplete) in its tempered nostalgia.

Corny twists and exchanges ensue in the wobbly story, but, delightfully, Daniel Benmayor’s film shows love not just for stunts but for the dynamic surfaces of the city.

The Life & Crimes of Doris Payne has an embarrassment of riches in Ms. Payne’s story, and it’s often a ripping good yarn, but, as a film, it lacks the nimbleness and resourcefulness of its subject.

Though not very ambitious, this winsome, whisper-thin tale shimmers along with the charming urge to connect and reveal yourself that links its two correspondents.