Paul Malcolm

If you can't count on a British con movie to deliver at least a few moments of entertaining color, well, then what can you count on? Director Richard Janes' slight and wobbly Fakers comes close to shattering one's faith in a just and orderly universe.

The editing looks like it was done in a blender, and the images of death and grief are so genre-primal that the Pangs hardly bother with dialogue.

The film stinks from start to finish, like a wet burlap sack of gloom.

Jalil penetrates a carnivalesque subculture of self-reinvention and obsession, emotional need and materialist greed, with a camera that is, by turns, cruel, kind and incisive.

Director Olli Saarela, who co-wrote the script with Antti Tuuri, offers up a trembling romanticism that gradually hardens -- like Eero's consciousness -- with exposure to the horrors of war.

Storaro's gorgeous cinematography imbues every frame with an enthralling subjectivity.

Ultimately, Jolie's efforts to establish a character are dashed against the film's increasingly inane dialogue.

Extraordinarily witty (nothing new for this director) while coming off as a taunt to anyone who'd dare to follow in his wake.

Writer-director Fabián Bielinsky's devilish Nine Queens serves as further evidence that Argentina's film industry is at the forefront of a resurgent Latin American cinema.

A rosy, hearthside fantasy of acceptance that's so assured in its writing and direction, it's nearly impossible not to believe.

Shooting Fish wants to hang with the hip crowd--witness the vibrant colors, the flashy camera work and the stream of catchy pop songs--but its heart just isn't wild enough.

Lamely engineered and thoroughly exploited tragedy.

A deft exercise in atmospheric horror and insanity. Which is why it's unfortunate that, ultimately, Anderson steps back from the brink.

Far too complex and provoking.

A half-baked classic.

If you're above the target age of 5, Thomas may coax you into a naplike stupor.

How Miike gets us from amiable point A to debilitating point B is a remarkable act of manipulation and control that may leave you feeling sucker-punched, even brutalized, but you won't forget the experience anytime soon.

In the end, Macartney and screenwriter Stuart Hepburn decide that love conquers all, which may have been the way it happened but doesn't leave the film with much going on.

The film gives good action (amid more tired spy business) but comes riddled with contradictions.

None of it rings true, and it distracts from the film's real heart, which, on its own, would have made for a strikingly original first film.

Malkovich and Dafoe play off each other with a devilish hamminess.

Mechanical revenge fantasy that skirts every serious issue it raises along a slick, cynical trajectory.

What feels genuine in the film -- mother-son bonds, the wedding party -- is surrounded by overdetermined and formulaic scenes lifted from other films.

A movie with a lot on its plate, but nothing interesting on its mind.

A tedious exercise in ethical hand wringing.

It's a nice try, but the film remains a pinhead's idea of softcore fetish material.

The film's plainness, and the understated force of van der Groen and Petersen's performances, sharpen its complexity of feeling until all mawkishness is cut away.

A remarkably moving and disturbing film about the possibility of belonging and the genealogy of violence.