Stephen Hunter

It never smirks or condescends as does, say, a Michael Moore; it never seems smug and superior, only committed and compassionate.

This movie gives it to you, as no movie has in some years. Okay, if that's not your part of the swamp, don't go into it.

As a terrifying example of what can happen when too many angry people are crowded into too small a space, it's a gripper.

The audience is treated to one extraordinary vision after another; the sense of a world literally being destroyed around the principal actors, the sense of their flight through panic and destruction, the sense of concussion, collapse, rubble and ruin.

Blondes may or may not have more fun, but in this one case, they certainly provide more fun.

So childish it seems to arrive in diapers, and that's not bad; it's good.

You have to see this to believe it.

This curious documentary is something rare, evincing opposites: It's both delightful and powerful.

It's without posturing or phony outrage, and offers instead something far more affecting: a deep sense of melancholy. This is the way it is, it says, and not much can be done about it.

The chronological looseness is part of the pleasure of the piece, which magically reassembles in the last reel into something strong, lucid and compellingly powerful.

If you view it passively, as a well-crafted melodrama set in danger among passionate antagonists, The Boxer is rewarding enough. If you attack it intellectually, you see the degree to which it is informed by ideas and realize the power of its argument.

He (Tobias) had a life, however, that was way off the charts in its unpredictability, and sharing it with him is fascinating.

Nicely done, sweet, delicately comic and a complete delight.

Let it swindle you; it's part of the fun. In fact, it's all of the fun.

Like nothing else that's played in months.

Endlessly interesting. It's about people who thought ideas and art mattered, which makes it a rarity today.

What makes the film so affecting, however, is its matter-of-fact evocation of character. Each person in the four-character cast is vivid and specific and believable.

You don't really watch the film; you survive it.

First and best, it's got a rip-roaring story. It sweeps you along, borne effortlessly by believable if flawed characters, as it flows toward the inevitable tragedy. But it's also got a heart: It watches as a child harsh of judgment learns that judgment is too easy a posture for the world, and it's best to love with compassion. [07Nov1997 Pg G.01]

Bleak and post-industrial, this is no easy film to watch. It hasn't a conventional image of beauty anywhere within its grim 93 minutes, being shot in harsh natural light that somehow plays up the grime and chill of back-alley life. But by the end, it's suffused with something utterly rare: moral beauty. [27 June 1997, p.D6]

Phone Booth is 82 New York minutes long, all of them exciting.

The original was about social manipulation as blood sport. Amazing how easily it transports, themes intact, to our blighted decade, and to our children.

The film, built of interviews with participants, is fast-paced, utterly absorbing and ultimately tragic.

This is postmodern folk art, a tricky transaction in which the work isn't just a story, it's a genre survey, a homage, a meditation, a parody and, oh yeah, while it's at it, still a pretty good story.

Isn't quite a great espionage movie or a great Africa movie, but in a summer of heat and wind, it's the next best thing.

So closely observed, so funny and so true to the junk that is everybody's real--as opposed to movie--life that it comes to feel like some kind of a miracle.

The documentary is fascinating, but hardly enjoyable. It's like watching ants eat an elephant.

It is kept watchable and empathetic by the energy of the superb performances and the sense of complete freshness.