Rick Groen

Girotti is especially evocative, his face an alternating current that switches from emptiness to alarm and back again.

Never brilliant but always solid and often wry, Marley & Me is what it celebrates -- an amiable overachiever.

It's Adrien Brody's turn to find himself the lone and immobilized star of an emerging new genre: Call it the anti-action flick.

The tale may be Dahl's, but there's a whole new wag to it – this is decidedly, weirdly and, at best, wonderfully a Wes Anderson movie.

So this is a first-level, unironic fright film, the sort whose tongue is removed from its cheek, coated in gore, and pointed right at the audience.

It's an imperfect movie that serves as a perfect reminder of what the movies do best.

In this journey, [Crowe] wears the uniform, the accent and the derring-do with consummate panache. Have him strike a muscular pose on the ship's prow, which Weir does more than once, and the manly sight puts that wussy DiCaprio to titanic shame.

Lumpy title, lively movie. Dead Man Down proves to be a frisky gangster flick cum elaborate thriller cum off-beat romance. Yep, there’s a whole lot going on here, but this is one of those plot-heavy scripts that carries its weight with confidence – the intricate twists don’t cheat.

Well, the movie suffers slightly from that tendency -- the portrait shows definite signs of airbrushing. But it's rendered with enough intelligence, and performed with sufficient grace, to offer us an occasionally compelling, curiously upbeat look behind the lacquered image and into the complicated self.

This is a movie about children that isn't just a children's movie - thoughtful adult accompaniment is strongly advised. [13 Aug 1993]

As the title more than hints, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is all about a leap of faith, and faith is exactly what this picture requires of us. Make the leap, and you'll be delighted by a movie that's sugary goodness, a guilty pleasure.

WAG the Dog is a cozy political satire, the warm-and-fuzzy kind that is always entertaining yet never disturbing.

Posse wants to be a 'classic Western' but its definition of classic is consistently cliched. Yet it has such grace and such an abiding belief in its message that you can't help but smile approval. [14 May 1993]

Untamed Heart is a gentle fable, a contemporary re-working of myths that will always cut close to the bone - myths about love and magic, about the silence that speaks volumes and the peace that surpasses understanding. It's certainly not a perfect film, but there's a sweet integrity to the writing and a stern refusal to compromise itself, to bow to the dictates of formula. [12 Feb 1993]

Renegades is not just another silly action flick; it's a well-made silly action flick, a superior brand of cotton candy. If you have a taste for the stuff, this should go down just fine. [02 Jun 1989]

How's this for a ringing endorsement: Watching Youth Without Youth, Francis Ford Coppola's first film in nearly a decade, is like taking a philosophy exam. A really tiring philosophy exam, where the questions are elegantly phrased but damn confounding and not really conducive to right answers.

At one point, Downey's character is asked, "What are you gonna do with all this rage, this hate?" and he snaps back, "I'll probably just write serious literature." On TV, where the material seemed both serious and literate, that bit of black humour felt prophetic. On film, it's just a good joke.

In 5 x 2, the 2 are terrific; it's the 5 that needs work.

Given the predictable scenario, this picture needs passion, and all it gets is his workmanlike precision. What he's constructed is worthy enough, and certainly navigable, but you need more than the bricks of craft to build a road to paradise.

The content is eminently forgettable but the thing has definitely got style.

This is filmmaking as a minor feat of engineering, the kind where even the gossamer emotions seem like prefab components -- charm, whimsy, serendipity, all so many discs plugged into the hard drive.

Whatever The House of Sand may lack in curb appeal, that view from the roof will have you gasping in wonderment.

In the Valley of Elah dearly wants to be the Iraq war's counterpart to "Coming Home," documenting the tragic domestic legacy of a misguided foreign conflict. Wants to be, but isn't.

There's a wonderfully subversive film buried somewhere in Spanglish, but it's never allowed to get out.

Up and down, Late Marriage is definitely rocky, but there's never a point where we lose interest and want out -- as relationships go, that's not bad.

In the midst of material that's dusty and dated, People I Know somehow feels apocalyptic. How is this possible? Easy: When America's liberal conscience is in the sole care of a publicist, you just know the world's going to hell in a handbasket.

The Devil's Advocate is a dull morality tale, but a number of bright moments come courtesy of the Prince of Darkness.

Sure, this is marginal, but it's precisely in the margins that the movie excels.