Robert Koehler

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Variety
For 516 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 45% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 13.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Robert Koehler's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 52
Highest review score: 100 Neil Young: Heart of Gold
Lowest review score: 0 Divorce: The Musical
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 163 out of 516
  2. Mixed: 240 out of 516
  3. Negative: 113 out of 516
516 movie reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    Sunset Story
    Tender, sensitive Sunset Story sidesteps a maudlin tone for a wide-ranging account of two fragile but opinionated retirees.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Winter Passing
    Family drama appears content to present the situation without going for anything remotely close to the emotional jugular. Result is unsatisfying and even dreary, despite some fine work from Zooey Deschanel and a becalmed Will Ferrell.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    August Evening
    Although guided by considerable empathy toward its small circle of kinfolk eking out a living in southern Texas, Eska's tale of a woman's unconditional support of her father-in-law is told with a faux-poetic sensibility that never really connects with his characters' lives.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    Fighting Tommy Riley
    The winner by a knockout is Eddie Jones...Without Jones, pic is a standard drama on the sweet science with the usual tropes and a slight tweak on the usual conflicts.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Antibodies
    Not content with a straight psychological police procedural, Alvart mixes in distracting -- and unconvincing --Biblical symbolism in a curious bid for weightiness.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Spiral
    The film toys with audience expectations and perceptions by playing fast and loose with circumstances and clues, while leading to an almost unavoidable and dismayingly obvious conclusion.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    Undisputed
    With Undisputed, writer-director Walter Hill is back in contention as one of Hollywood's last defenders of the muscular, no-nonsense genre movie.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Garmento
    Michele Maher's Garmento appears more shocked at the fashion industry's cynical side than moviegoers are likely to be, making its drama of corruption a preordained snooze.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    My Best Friend
    My Best Friend is a sex farce on steroids, overflowing with energy and excessive curiosity about what the movie camera actually can do.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    The Mothman Prophecies
    Director Mark Pellington hardly lets a moment pass without suggesting some bad vibes creeping onto the edges of the screen, but he's let down by Richard Hatem's script, based on John A. Keel's book, which delivers an ounce when it promised a gallon.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America
    Stylish and substantial enough to prompt even a couch potato to action, Kelly Duane's Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America delivers a stirring and visually dense account of the life and times of Brower.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    One Last Thing...
    Plays closer to an after-school special (with HBO-standard dialogue) than a satisfying feature film.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    A/k/a Tommy Chong
    While the picture's reporting on government repression of alternative cultural ideas and lifestyles is noteworthy more than anything, it's a blatant promo for Chong's career.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Employee of the Month
    Falling short of being truly memorable but sharper than the general slagheap of comedies.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Robert Koehler
    Trade
    Little more than a slipshod, trashy, sometimes exploitative thriller.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    The Thing About My Folks
    Good-natured but only memorable as a platform for the amusingly feisty Peter Falk, The Thing About My Folks plies a light approach to the problems grown children face when their parents appear on the verge of divorce.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 20 Robert Koehler
    Play It to the Bone
    A woefully under-realized story of small-time boxers enjoying perhaps their last moment in the spotlight.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Sahara
    Saddled with more industry/celebrity baggage than a high-class safari voyage, Sahara is a rousing and only occasionally ridiculous adventure yarn.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 10 Robert Koehler
    Turn It Up
    Patently absurd in both the details and larger aspects, the ultraserious pic is undermined by poor casting.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 20 Robert Koehler
    Saving Silverman
    Misbegotten, unimaginative buddy pic.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Light It Up
    Never quite catches fire in its too-deliberate attempt to appeal to all ages and all tastes.
    • 23 Metascore
    • 30 Robert Koehler
    Caffeine
    Nonsense, hysterics and many cuppas spill in Caffeine, an ensembler that serves up a menu's worth of forced and trite situations.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris
    De Felitta seems a born documaker. He brilliantly constructs a tale born of a genuine love of jazz and a need to understand how Paris went from sensation to footnote in a generation.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Man of the Year
    Ensemble proves improvisationally capable, but film overall is rather conventional, a Hollywood idea of an experimental film presented with a heavy serving of showbiz-type cynicism.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Undiscovered
    As a cautionary drama on the price of fame, Undiscovered could not tread on more exhaustively discovered territory, and the result is a reel-by-reel trail of cliches.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Two Weeks
    Picture veers unsteadily between melodrama and light comedy, with no confidence in either.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    She's the Man
    As insistent as its heroine to get its point across, She's the Man gathers up enough energy and likeable goodwill that it almost skirts past some extremely strained passages in which Bynes plays out being a boy.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    April's Shower
    The joys of farce are fumbled in April's Shower, star-director-writer Trish Doolan's arch and undernourished comedy about a bridal shower turned on its head by the bride's lesbian past.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 20 Robert Koehler
    American Outlaws
    Sadly symbolizes the decline of the Western. The 36th bigscreen version of the exploits of the James-Younger Gang is one of the least convincing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Bánk bán
    While it creaks along at times, director Csaba Kael's new film version of a Hungarian opera masterpiece, Ferenc Erkel's Bank Ban, is ultimately an invaluable entry in the opera-on-film library.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Bulletproof Monk
    Not surprisingly based on a comic book series by Brett Lewis and R.A. Jones (whom pic fails to credit), pic hurtles along at a pace designed by vet music vid and ad helmer Paul Hunter to engage short attention spans.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 20 Robert Koehler
    MVP: Most Valuable Primate
    A lark gone utterly awry.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    Tuck Everlasting
    Disney's tradition of intelligent, live-action family period cinema is magnificently revived in Tuck Everlasting.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Sir! No Sir!
    Because it's bolstered by proud memories of Vietnam vets who turned against the war, Sir! No Sir! rings with an exultant, even elated tone.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Wassup Rockers
    A thoroughly winning and unexpectedly observant lark about the antics of seven Latino skateboarding pals in South-Central Los Angeles.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    The Emperor's New Groove
    Light, taut and compact, the zippy adventure is sometimes much too hip for the room.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    The Hunting Party
    Alternately glib, superficial and amusing, pic vainly attempts to absorb some degree of Serbian irony into a story that's unavoidably lessened by its privileged American vantage point.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    The Wild Thornberrys Movie
    Balances intelligent humor, slapstick, Blighty reserve and Yank spunk along with environmentalism.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Factory Girl
    The wild, unhinged life of Andy Warhol's favorite "superstar," Edie Sedgwick, is refashioned in Factory Girl as a tame biopic with little feel for the 1960s New York Underground.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    The Great Water
    Extraordinary perfs by a mostly young cast likely will be cancelled out by the grim subject.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    Freshman Orientation
    With intermittently amusing glee, writer-director Ryan Shiraki's tyro film, Freshman Orientation, frolics through the political minefields of a typical college campus.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Flight of the Phoenix
    Shows both how far Hollywood's tech departments have advanced in 40 years and how shallow the pool of solid action thesps has become.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Sunset Strip
    Interesting structure provides pic with plenty of opportunities for social satire, human comedy and chance encounters, but few setups are ever dramatically fulfilled.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Koehler
    Why We Fight
    Picture sets the gold standard for political documentaries.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    Deep Blue Sea
    Powered by exceptional displays of physical filmmaking, Deep Blue Sea is pulled back to shore by the usual suspects -- weak plotting and weaker dialogue.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Life as a House
    A family melodrama that becomes less authentic as it progressively takes itself more seriously.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    Cellular
    Because plot is the sum total here, the alarming holes, inconsistencies and impossibilities in Chris Morgan's script corrode this drama of distress.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    One Last Ride
    Though it lacks the sheer, depraved intensity of similarly themed pics like "The Gambler," Ride shares much of the sunlit sadness of "Save the Tiger," also populated by desperate, middle-aged men plying their trade in Los Angeles' garment district.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    Idiocracy
    A satire for its time. What Judge is less sure of here than in his previous, perfectly pitched live-action comedy "Office Space," is how to build a complete movie around his key ideas.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Radio
    "Inspired by a true story" it may be, but inspired it's not.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    Bustin' Down the Door
    With verve, style and a fine sense of the human side of surf culture, Jeremy Gosch makes a terrific splash with his debut doc, Bustin' Down the Door.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Robert Koehler
    Rize
    Eye-popping lensing and an appreciation of social complexities combine for an entirely satisfying experience.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 0 Robert Koehler
    Wash Dry and Spin Out
    A pathetically conceived drama that wastes the serious theme of how emotionally and sexually inadequate men abuse others.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    American Dreamz
    Combining a gallery of targets including President Bush, "American Idol," the Iraq War and the overarching theme of a nation of citizens held in the thrall of phony dreams, pic and its ambitions are undermined by insistent cartoonishness and comic ineptitude.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Voices in Wartime
    A history of verse is laid alongside that of warfare, and the ways in which they are braided together proves fascinating.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    My Best Friend
    Well-turned adult comedy.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    The Man
    Functional if thoroughly uninspired movie. Because it clings to the comedy-action template of "48 Hrs.," pic feels like it could have been made 15 years ago.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Rock Star
    Feels particularly like old news after the risks of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle were laid out for the previously uninformed in last year's "Almost Famous."
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    First Descent
    Pic displays filmmakers Kevin Harrison's and Kemp Curley's love of snowboarding, but suffers from an unjustifiably long running time, considerable repetition and a generally awkward structure.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
    Though it never disguises its sympathies for Kasparov and contempt for a powerful corporation's machinations, documentary is finally a speculation on the limits of the human mind and how truth can never be fully known.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 30 Robert Koehler
    South of Heaven, West of Hell
    A quasi-metaphysical revenge Western that remains as elusive as a distant mirage on a long, dusty trail.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Fixing Frank
    Full of bold dramatic strokes and complex character shadings.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    Game 6
    Game 6, the first screenplay by one of America's great living novelists, Don DeLillo, is poorly served by Michael Hoffman's flat, soporific direction.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    Shock to the System
    Enough action, a tiny pinch of sex and some campy moments from Morgan Fairchild.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Robert Koehler
    Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie
    Unlikely to draw new fans but destined to please followers who couldn't catch the live act.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Robert Koehler
    By Hook or by Crook
    No movie like this about friendship between two young lesbians and their various adventures, punctuated with laissez-faire jump-cutting, should be this boring.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    Moonlight Mile
    A movie at war with itself -- tuned into its characters' vicissitudes one moment, stumbling with awkward stabs at goofiness the next.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Robert Koehler
    I Spy
    It's precisely the lineup of familiar past work that makes I Spy pretty dull goods, invigorated mainly by the sharp interplay between Murphy and Wilson, both of whom shine best when they have a sidekick to work with.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Robert Koehler
    In Bruges
    Closer to pics like “The Hit” and “Miller’s Crossing” than to McDonagh’s bristling, funny plays, this half-comic, half-serious account of two Irish hitmen who are sent to the titular Belgian burg to cool their heels after a job is moderately fair as a nutty character study, but overly far-fetched once the action kicks in.
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