Ruthe Stein

The director has a natural's gift for storytelling and eye for casting.

A solid WWII movie that's been lost among myriad others about the same war. [02 Jul 2006, p.28]

Lange seems at a loss to know how to convey Martha's malevolence -- and writer-director Jonathan Darby offers almost no guidance.

Caruso, a very visual director, serves up some surprises and scares, and he's paced his movie briskly. You're out of this disturbing suburbia before you know it, shaken and even stirred.

The casting, at least, is magical. Plowright shows both her character's strength and her heartbreaking vulnerability, sometimes at once.

A wildly entertaining fantasy thriller that propels Russian cinema into the 21st century.

If you can still be entertained by a thriller that unabashedly borrows from others of its ilk and don't mind reading subtitles, you could do worse than District B13. It's over so fast, in a quick 85 minutes, there's scarcely time to get bored by the silly plot.

The ending is predictable to anybody who's followed the trajectory of outsourcing. Outsourced humanizes those affected by it - even if the story sounds familiar.

One of very few films to accurately portray the experience of growing up male.

Becomes tiresome.

A breed apart from anything coming off the Hollywood assembly line or, for that matter, from the saccharine romances Britain has lately produced.

Vanessa Redgrave makes a regal if too-brief appearance.

Hanssen is such an enigma that any attempt to explain him has inherent interest. Breach expends too much energy on a minor functionary, but it is still worth seeing for its fleeting looks into a heart of darkness.

Heart-wrenching film.

It is crystal clear who screwed up this tortuously slow-moving romantic drama.

With a strongly visual director, Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner," "Alien", the film really shows what's involved at this level of combat training.

Intermittently funny.

Van Houten, a veteran of European TV, is in almost every scene, and her energetic performance keeps Black Book percolating despite an overstuffed plot that strains credibility and often tips over into melodrama.

A heartwarming, inspirational tale.

Attempts something startlingly original by melding light opera with soap opera.

Sleuth"is that rare film that would have been better longer. You're not through looking at Caine and Law when the final credits roll.

A bit of fluff expertly made and a hoot to watch.

Deliriously original.

It's a first feature film for both screenwriter Alex Rose and director Gaby Dellal, and their inexperience shows in Frank's underdeveloped relationships with family and friends and in the movie's sluggish pacing.

Sounds great and if nothing else should help diminish the stereotype, blasted by the film's subjects, of Gypsies as little more than pickpockets whom travelers need to be wary of.

With Lloyd Webber onboard not just as composer but also co-screenwriter and producer, the film seemed destined to stay true to its roots rather than attempt to transcend them.

Overly long and not especially enlightening film.

A mess, and that's really a shame.