Rick Groen

The ensemble is unwieldy and the attendant yarn much too cluttered.

Even augmented by the priceless commodity of Smith's talent, $25,575 can only be stretched so far. Apparently, it won't buy you a stellar cast - some very strong lines receive some rather flat deliveries. And some distinctly lame scenes survive the chopping block.

With the notable exception of Martin Scorsese's opus, most boxing flicks suffer form a certain amount of raw-boned sentimentality, the sort of easy melodrama that pits naive underdogs against corrupt overlords, or age against youth, or purity against prejudice. Even the recent "Million Dollar Baby" succumbed in the final act. But this one, where "Rocky" meets "The Waltons," has us reeling under its saccharine weight.

Perhaps for Zwigoff, directing someone else's script, this was just a job of work. If not, the talent who made "Crumb" and "Ghost World "has now made his first movie mistake.

A Mexican feature from writer/director Guillermo Del Toro, it's a modern vampire tale that occasionally rises to the level of competence but never inches any higher. [20 May 1994]

The Coen brothers adaptation is impeccable, a perfect mirror of McCarthy's prose – sparse, suspenseful, probing and profoundly disturbing.

Of course, entire books have been written, and perused by disappointed women, about the male reluctance to put away their fantasized Biancas. In that sense, Lars and the Real Girl is real indeed. In every other, it's a sweet, bordering on saccharine, bagatelle.

Gosh, what to say about House of 1000 Corpses? That it's about 999 too many, for starters. Then again, in a picture where the body count is the whole point and the only purpose, carping about the math rather misses the mark.

So no one would argue that Thumbsucker sucks. But the thing does seem just so indie-movie familiar.

Let's start with this certainty: No one but Quentin Tarantino could possibly have made Inglourious Basterds . Now add another: No one but his most ardent fans will be entirely glad that Quentin Tarantino did make Inglourious Basterds .

What we see is admirable, but what we feel is minimal.

In short, Batman is terrific - funny, smart and sensitive too, the perfect cinematic date.

Surprisingly funny yarn about a drug-addled cop in the Big Easy.

Strange and beautiful and transfixing and confusing, it's quite the sight - martial-arts fans may find themselves disappointed, but Wong Kar-wai addicts will be delighted.

In the moments at his disposal, Smith almost steals the flick. He's so wittily government-phobic that I found myself hoping for a climax that would blow Bruce Willis away and promote Kevin Smith to saviour-of-the-free-world. Now that might be a sequel worth rooting for.

Although the subject, school bullying, is as fresh as today's headlines, the treatment isn't. Despite the efforts of an impressive cast, the film starts out stale and then just gets tedious.

It's a comedy, it's a romance, it's a gangster flick. The Cooler is all of that and much, much less. This is a movie without a compass, switching pace and direction as haphazardly as a caffeinated SUV driver on a cellphone.

Apparently, the faith that can move mountains is detectable in the microscopes that can track electrons. If so, the metaphoric is real and, to me, that thought is as scary as it is thrilling -- but what the bleep do I know?

En route, despite some clumsy exposition and the reduction of heavyweights like Mary McCarthy and William Shawn to fifth-business caricatures, the film does manage one impressive intellectual achievement of its own: rescuing that “banality of evil” phrase from the banal cliché it’s become and, by providing the full and daring context, giving it real meaning again.

So this is a light/bright movie that actually illuminates our dull grey lives, reminding us that intrigue can be, well, intriguing. And damn sexy too.

From the first stylized shot to the final comic resolution, Moonstruck is completely sui generis - hard to describe but easy to love.

A film where the cast neatly dovetails with the script which perfectly meshes with the direction. In short, a film that works. [5 Aug 1987]

Expected too is the result: a kind of sterile opulence or, if you prefer, a magnificent emptiness.

For Steven Spielberg, who confines his Midas touch here to the roles of co-writer and producer, has refreshingly set out to reverse the standard ratio of the standard scare flick - that is, to frighten us a little and charm us a lot. Even more refreshingly, he succeeds. [4 June 1982]

The wee mousie is fun, all right, yet like the occasionally ragged editing, the fun just gets haphazardly wedged in.

The result is a whodunit so nicely crafted that you're tempted to forgive the Byzantine plot -- hell, you're even tempted to pretend you actually understand its twisting obscurities.

It's odd, how these high-concept films, knowing that the central gimmick has a way of wearing out its welcome, are all so short – a mere 84 minutes in this case. Why odd? Because short always ends up feeling so damn long. This is no exception. Quick to start and painfully slow to finish, Chronicle is the same old chronicle.

For the kids, the action is always lively and, for the rest of us, the dialogue has a witty and even caustic edge.

These are valid ideas, but they don't always arise organically out of the script, and can seem clumsily expressed.

Solitary Man makes too good on its title – it’s a fascinating character study isolated within a mediocre film.

Semi-decent, somewhat okay, not-half-bad.

Ultimately, Little Voice comes to us from an indeterminate place that is no longer the theatre but not quite the movies. Let's call it music videoland -- best just to sit back and enjoy golden-oldie tunes belted out by a quicksilver mimic.

Arthur constantly flirts with the trite and dallies with the excessive. But it goes steady with neither, and so makes for a very pleasant companion on a warm summer eve. [17 July 1981]

It's all a bit too schematic, yet the ambition is admirable and the message powerful: Today, no less than yesterday, the weak must be strong to survive, and their strength is endlessly tested.

The whole caper loses its rhythm and its direction around the two-thirds mark. By the finish, the punch has left the lines, and the once-purposeful energy goes mindlessly manic - gone are both the point and the parody.

Too bad there's also a final 15 minutes that surely ranks among the worst endings an otherwise good movie has ever received.

Disappointingly unique.

The film itself struggles to do justice to each victim. Turns out three stories are two too many. The Company Men should have been downsized.

Simultaneously a spectacular act of movie-making and a slight movie. Or is that impossible: When the means are so gloriously abundant, can the end ever be merely trivial?

This is a fairly well-made picture that's just been fairly well-made too many times before, a knock-off of a thousand other knock-offs.

Marshall treats everything, from the feminist themes to a soundtrack that features period chestnuts redone by contemporary singers, with a unique mix of the furiousand the subdued - a broad knee-slapper one moment, a delicate caress the next. No wonder we root for it. With the count full and our hopes wavering, A League Of Their Own smacks a stand-up triple and dares us not to cheer. Go ahead - give in and be a fan. [3 July 1992]

Your basic and basically predictable by-the-numbers picture.

The film version, competently directed by Clint Eastwood and beautifully acted by Meryl Streep, isn't about to mess with a popular formula - this is a straight-up adaptation as faithful as a fawning spouse.

Definitely erratic, this thing -- all in all, it's the sort of commercial vehicle you might want to stay well back of.

Reign Over Me drizzles down on us for two full hours, persistently determined to prove that, if it hangs around long enough, a coherent movie will turn up. No such luck.

Flashy, fun, shallow, easy-going and without a hope of brilliance.

Persepolis is as modern as tomorrow's headlines and as classic as an ancient myth.

Keen to be both really romantic and romantically real, the movie is neither, and falls between the cracks of its twin-ambitions. The result? Call it l'amour phooey.

A film that transforms a popular work of teen fiction not just by faithfully exploring its themes but, more important, by proving those themes have a very grown-up resonance.

Packs a wickedly satiric punch.

These days, when presidential bouquets are named Gennifer Flowers, and when we all know what Jack Kennedy did beneath the White House covers, this sort of Capra-corn, even in the guise of light comedy, just doesn't have the same taste. More salt, please, and hold the butter.

Despite his flair for trenchant dialogue, nicely complemented by Mark Isham's bluesy jazz score, Rudolph whets our appetite but then fails to deliver. The picture limps to its ending and leaves us with nothing to hold onto.

Despite a formidable effort and occasional grace, there's something cowardly about Braveheart -- it's an aspiring giant with a diminutive soul.

Crazy, Stupid, Love seems at times like a bunch of movies searching for an identity. Happily, some of them are actually worth watching.

No doubt, these twin saviours are a likeable tandem, and they bear their cross lightly. Still, End of Watch suffers from no end of sanctimony. Sainthood is all well and fine but it ain't drama and, on screen at least, the question cries out: Where's a corrupt cop when you need him?

A lotta woe to sit through, with not much to think about and only one matter to address. After the two hours-plus have sped by with brutal alacrity, all that's left is for the survivors of the bloodbath to hose down and suss out a "new beginning." I'm still searching for mine, but you might have better luck.

Most of this is bald, and very funny; some of it is witty, and even funnier. [14 Dec 1988, p.C9]

Without its star, this picture would float off forgettably into the ether.

The World's Fastest Indian may be the world's slowest movie.

Says the actor Jeff Bridges, a long-time and articulate soldier in the campaign against hunger: “It’s a problem that our government is ashamed of acknowledging. We’re in denial.”

The documentary seeks only to make a joyful noise, and is sometimes laboured in the love it so keenly wants to express. Then again, as Leonard would be the first to concede, there are worse sins than flawed worship.

The film preaches the gospel of unpredictable change, of ironic metamorphosis, of a psychological ebb and flow from love to lust, hope to despair, good to evil. But if the message is fluid, the medium is static at best and chaotic at worst - there's very little controlled motion in this picture. [19 June 1992]

It's mainly a hunt for ironies, usually playful but occasionally poignant, and the search is definitely successful enough to merit our attention -- although maybe not the two-hour running time.

FALLING Down is a nasty bit of business, a two-faced manipulator that condones what it pretends to condemn. Cluttered and often downright silly, it's not much of a movie, but it is a fascinating sign of the times - a litmus test for every prejudice and fear harboured by the white middle class in ailing, urban America. [26 Feb 1993, p.C6]

Much like Robert Altman during his forays into the genre, writer/director Asghar Farhadi isn't really interested in the answers. Instead, he keeps expanding the questions, until that singular title comes to seem a misnomer.

Yep, just like a good meal - you feel satisfied without feeling stuffed. There's also a pleasant, lingering aftertaste - deceptively clever, even wise moments that sneak back up on you, demanding re-examination. [16 Sep 1994]

For a film meant to float on a gossamer veil of mystery, The Illusionist falls -- make that flops -- with quite the heavy thud. It's an intended piece of magic that plays like a ponderous slab of melodrama, sleight of hand gone ham-handed.

What began as discomfiting satire soon devolves into silly farce. By the time Friends star Jennifer Aniston pops up as a waitress-cum-love-interest (quite a stretch for her), it's a sure sign we're back within the smug confines of the Tinseltown formula flick.

The target is way too easy and the tone far too smug. This time, they're shooting fish in a barrel with a bazooka and congratulating themselves on their marksmanship.

The climax, a 20-minute dramatization of the crucial contest, lacks both suspense and poetry -- essentially, we're left to watch a clumsy recreation of a game whose outcome we already know. That's a sort of resurrection, I suppose, but miraculous it assuredly ain't.

The result is nothing if not a curiosity piece.

Despite the occasional stumble, the doc never falls, thanks to the sheer strength of its subjects' undaunted and indomitable character.

Waydowntown may not be perfect, but it is perfectly astute in the target it selects and in the questions it raises.

The title leaves no doubt about the ending but, thanks to Santos's unflinching performance and Rodrigues's continued audaciousness, the climax still takes us aback.

The strength of this documentary lies in its balance, or at least the careful appearance of balance.

Although the entire film is beautifully framed and shot, especially the surreal sequences, precious little coheres into anything resembling a compelling narrative.

The running time is efficient, the direction is clean, the story is simple but resonant, the effects are understated yet impressive, and the near-wordless star of the show puts on an acting clinic. Damned if the risen one doesn't lift us out of our seats.

There's a continuing delicacy to [Singer's] direction that gives the audience room to breathe and reason to linger. This may not be a grownup movie but -- unlike the Star Wars franchise or the Batman sequels -- it is a movie that grownups can watch minus the requisite bottle of Excedrin.

IN THE BEGINNING, Ivan Reitman begat Animal House and Animal House begat Meatballs and Meatballs begat Stripes. In the end, the box-office deity surveyed this handiwork and pronounced it good. Good and stale. For you can tamper with the setting, you can fiddle with the cast but, by all that's holy in the land of the cash flow, don't ever mess with a lucrative premise. [27 June 1981]

It's perfectly admirable, absolutely controlled, and fully understandable. [09 Oct 1992]

A contemplative fable, Honeydripper locates the moment but misses the heart-pounding, gut-wrenching explosion -- the history is there, the thrill isn't.

Once again, Cianfrance handles the individual scenes with menacing aplomb but, once again, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.

In the slow coast down Notting Hill, we approach the blessed land of Nodding Off.

Seen from any chronological vantage, this isn't a superior flick - think of it more as great radio with average pictures. [16 Nov 1990]

Lethal Weapon sinks an unexpectedly sharp hook at a delightfully unique angle, and never once lets up. A purposefully off- kilter flick, it fakes one way and moves another, thwarting our conditioned responses and fuelling our happy surprise. [6 Mar 1987, p.D1]

The spaghetti western may be dead, but the noodle eastern looks to be alive and well.

The greatest story ever has finally been told. Or, if you prefer, the damn thing has come to its merciful end.

The delight here is in the sheer workmanship. The performances, the direction, the plotting, they're just nicely engineered, usually with an eye to that most underrated of virtues -- refined simplicity.

My advice is to choose the first half, where things are really funny until they aren't.

When Veber is on form there's no one better. And when he's not, well, give The Valet a look anyway -- there's still much to admire.