Ronnie Scheib

Kashyap relies completely on star Ranbir Kapoor to put over this relentless reiteration of cliches and, admittedly, the actor invests his aggressively tasteless, crotch-grabbing antics with enough energy and humor to make it palatable, but only just.

Without fully fleshed-out generic or social contexts, left-wing documentarian Philippe Diaz's preachy mix of graphic free love and polemical diatribe fails to mesh as fiction, though it does make for superior porn.

Though the low-budget picture is not without interest, its uneven thesping, sound quality and special effects might prove more welcome on the fest fringe.

Valerie Harper essays a Catholic twist on her yakkety yenta "Rhoda" persona, while Giancarlo Esposito, as the wise, hip priest heading the retreat, is called upon to bring believability to a film low in that commodity.

A model of cohesion and clarity as long as it's dealing with Brown's exemplary public achievements. However, pic quickly becomes mired in tedium and confusion when it turns to Brown's scandal-ridden private life.

A bland, perverse round-robin of teen angst.

Pic relies on nerdy world-weary irony to carry the day, but doesn't convincingly draw its characters.

Both subscribes to and somewhat departs from the bare-bones improvisational formula established by the mumblecore movement, sometimes sacrificing ambiguity for the sake of broader, telegraphed, one-note laughs.

The edge achieved by director-editor-producer-scribe Garth Donovan is jeopardized by overreaching for topical relevance.

Its provocative subject matter, though seriously treated, qualifies it as a dark-horse candidate for latenight cable.

This messy amalgam of mysticism, romance, satire, social criticism and cartoonish f/x seems destined for discount DVD bins.

Poorly conceived 60-minute picture might have fared better as a more straightforward documentary.

Scripter Lund, himself an ex-teacher, delivers a story that lacks nuance, and mixes badly with Kaye's impatient edits, Dutch angles and extreme close-ups.

The picture's assorted characters, though credible, feel wearisomely one-dimensional, while the pumped-up action, unfolding in a single day, basically consists of an extended game of hide-and-seek.

Lack of perspective and shaky comic tone plague Tollbooth -- sinking it in a morass of whiny cliches.

This ongoing improvisation, along with the completed passes and resulting chest-bumping celebrations or recriminations, serves to define these otherwise "ordinary" ciphers and lend shape and momentum to an otherwise plotless movie.

The storyline develops so erratically that it lacks any internal momentum, with some scenes unfolding in exhaustive detail and others seemingly missing, as if whole chunks had been shot and later edited out.

Comes off as a painfully old-fashioned, flatly directed exercise in passionless historical reenactment.

Standout perfs by Bernadette Peters as an aging diva and Rachel Brosnahan as her solicitous 15-year-old daughter are the only reasons to see Lisa Albright's Coming Up Roses, a tired '80s-set meller hobbled by lackluster helming and an unconvincing script.

The film continually resists coherence or synthesis, with puzzles left unresolved amid multiplying possibilities and highly repetitive flashbacks, yielding a mystery that wearies rather than intrigues.

Complex story twists unfold to confusing effect, while characters angrily toss cliches at one another and revelations multiply rather than resolve murky plot developments.

Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan's script relentlessly piles on goopy conversation-stoppers like "Do you believe in destiny?" and "I didn't know that true love had an expiration date."

Though it follows the reductive paradigms of men-on-the-make laffers, the low-budget, flatly shot picture rarely turns nastily shrill or swaggeringly stupid in tone; redemption and/or sanity is usually waiting in the wings.

This black comedy on the making of a documentary about mail-order wives finally breaks down under the weight of its twists and turns, but mostly maintains a creepy fascination with its scuzzy characters.

This cinematic anomaly falls flat as a stand-alone.

Star Chiyaan Vikram delivers a knockout three-pronged performance, but this cinematic bravura is offset by underdeveloped scripting, flatly one-dimensional villains and overdone lone-hero-vs.-swarms-of-murderous-attackers setpieces.

Unfortunately, the unconvincing fictional storyline Rosenbaum weaves around this solid musical base hits every meller cliche in the "self-destructive rock star" playbook.

Uncomfortably confessional or wildly melodramatic plot twists work interestingly in the moment, but wobble in retrospect. Pic's overarching structure is further weakened by Schaeffer's half-hearted attempt to tie together loose ends.