Robert Koehler

An unusual example of what can be termed a "gay Christian" film, Cone's feature is among the best of a recent spate of dramas observing American Christian life.

Taking the genre to a higher level of intensity, the Welsh-born Evans continues what he started in previous Indonesia-set actioner "Merantau," but this picture will seal his cult status.

A mechanically efficient yet soulless dramatization of the U.S. Navy SEALs in action, Act of Valor ultimately misses its target: The hearts and minds of American audiences.

Jeter's film takes on the quality of a sustained dream, as if the theatrical conceits of Jean Genet were married to a children's story retold via William Faulker's Southern brand of stream of consciousness.

Similar in its battlefield passages to last year's Danish-made "Armadillo," Dennis' film scores a layered perspective that follows Marine Sgt. Nathan Harris into combat and back home.

Doubly disappointing considering that it marks the first feature by Rwandan filmmakers to address the country's 1994 Hutu-on-Tutsi genocide, Kinyarwanda awkwardly and fitfully patches together a half-dozen story strands meant to provide a panoramic view of war and reconciliation.

Detailing the birth, life and death of America's first major urban housing project in St. Louis, Chad Freidrichs' The Pruitt-Igoe Myth combines concise but thoroughgoing sociological-historical analysis and elegant cinematic resources in service of an uncommonly artful example of film journalism.

The screenplay by Daniel Tendler, Fernando Bonassi and Lula biographer Parana succumbs to many of the most unfortunate narrative tendencies of biopics, including a proclivity for piling on incident after incident as a substitute for real character insight.

A weekend romp for four middle-aged buddies devolves into a drug-fueled, suicidal hell in Mark Pellington's ill-conceived and executed I Melt With You, a work of extreme self-indulgence.

The film observes a guy verging on poverty or riches with a bounty of beautiful imagery and fresh angles on skateboarding culture.

The former Beatle, a longtime Maysles friend, could have found no better documentarian.

Great for ADD-style viewing but not for advancing Iranian cinema's currently challenged profile.

When this "Enemy Within" settles into key action sequences, such as a stunning nighttime ambush or a daytime battle against Fabio, it becomes wildly entertaining.

Leiser flexes his animation muscles with a bewitching stop-motion technique, but it proves a poor fit with a scattershot storyline that includes quasi-interview and improv segments that never coalesce into a coherent whole.

While there's the sense that this old guy/young guy spy angle has been done better by films like "Spy Game" a decade ago, Gere, never looking tougher or handsomer, and Grace, adding some action skills to his relatively cerebral persona, invigorate the proceedings in roles that would seem to benefit the actors' career arcs.

The film as a whole isn't quite as interesting, though it is noteworthy that action specialist Emmerich has clearly decided to change course here from anything he's previously made. Although this is primarily a writer's film, with John Orloff's screenplay (and dialogue) placed front and center, Anonymous surprises with how classical, staid and traditional Emmerich's mise-en-scene is, never straying from tried-and-true costumer standards.

Akomfrah's steady, patient pace makes it fairly easy and ultimately fascinating to absorb his many heady references.

More boring than stomach-churning, the film nevertheless contains scattered scenes and sequences so far beyond the tolerance of the squeamish that it can't be overstated.

Impressive as the combination may seem on paper, having Sheridan direct this sort of genre fare reps a clear miscasting of helmer and subject, as he displays no particular feel for the material and is unable to overcome the story's generic approach, lack of striking psychological ideas, and literal-minded denouement.

Just as some of the footage deepens what is already there, additions in final reel, though closer to Blatty’s wishes, restate the obvious or add a feel-good patina which pushes the film closer to our own audience-pleasing period than the more daring early ’70s. [2000 re-release]

This cautionary melodrama about a Korean-American teen girl's slide into depravity is too inconsequential and too earnest to belong in the So Bad It's Good category; rather, it's merely bad.

Limp comedy-drama.

Never really busts out of second gear.

Samuel L. Jackson instantly takes the mantle from Mr. Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree, and runs with it on pure style and charisma.

An unembarrassed, high-octane demonstration of the virtues of a U.S. military with a mission, the latest war pic from 20th Century Fox -- a studio with a proud tradition in this field -- couldn't be better timed to fit the popular mood.

The temptations of allowing a promotional video to seep inside a genuine non-fiction study nearly overtake East of Havana and its look at a bubbling hip-hop culture in Cuba.

The film is, at times, emotionally riveting -- yet also has an institutional feeling, largely because it attempts to cover too much ground in too little time.

After a long, glum slide, pic becomes an unconvincing story of redemption.