Dwayne Johnson hops aboard as a stern U.S. agent hot on Diesel's trail, and the whole thing progresses to one of the looniest heists of all time. The result is the most exciting, visually jazzy, and absurd entry in the series.

William A. Seiter directed this 1935 release, with a light touch but not enough style to transcend the machinations of the trifling plot.

Despite a certain originality, the movie isn't really a success, not only because the plot bites off more than it can chew (the film doesn't conclude; it simply stops), but also because, like its hero, it has some trouble distinguishing between petty irritations and cataclysmic traumas.

Occasionally provocative but frequently wearying.

Director Jay Russell (My Dog Skip) paces everything so slowly, and the story is so devoid of genuine conflict, that this seems to go on for an eternity.

Visually commanding, conceptually beguiling, but dramatically inert.

Apart from some softening of the extreme violence (through manipulations on the sound track) and some fancy intercutting, this is every bit as unpleasant as Olmos can make it, but occasionally edifying as well.

The plot is typical fluff—Kelly and Sinatra join Esther Williams's baseball team at the turn of the century—but the production values are, as always, worth the price of admission.

This talking-heads documentary by Stefan Forbes doesn't waste much time delving into Atwater's misshapen character; instead it focuses on his South Carolina roots and his instinctive grasp of the southern strategy that's been the GOP's key to the White House for the past 40 years.

The film runs for 134 minutes, but Lumet keeps things moving with his sharp eye (and ear) for New York detail and his escalating sense of liberal outrage.

Judge races through some of his most provocative ideas in the opening minutes and ignores his story's many logical inconsistencies; the movie is bracing for its bile but ultimately more frustrating than funny.

Unfortunately, every laugh is bludgeoned nearly to death by Marvin Hamlisch's jokey score of neo-James Bond riffs and 70s sitcom melodies; I liked the movie quite a bit, but by the end I felt as if I were at a live TV show with a blinking sign ordering me to LAUGH.

Adapted by Ernest Tidyman from his novel, this suffers from some sluggish dialogue scenes, but the movie comes to vibrant life whenever director Gordon Parks hits the streets of New York.

Ken Marino, who plays the silliest of the diggers, wrote the script, and when it isn't straining after elegiac moments, it's fresh and unpredictable.

Pivots on the characters' racism and xenophobia, playing tricks with our own biases and ultimately justifying an extravagant array of coincidences and surprises.

This 1975 film's inventiveness begins to flag about halfway through, but by then it's a relief.

Neither character is especially well defined, particularly if one discounts the strident overdefinition of their respective milieus, but as an old-fashioned Hollywood romance in which anything can happen, this is reasonably watchable, and at times mildly funny.

Narrative continuity and momentum have never been among Hopper's strong points, and this time the choppiness of the storytelling diffuses the dramatic impact without offering a shapely mosaic effect (as in [his] previous films) to compensate for it.

The Pang brothers rely heavily on visual razzle-dazzle (courtesy of cinematographer Decha Srimantra) and startling sound effects to work up the scares.

Fine character work by Juliet Stevenson, Archie Panjabi, and Bollywood regular Anupam Kher make this well worth seeing.

This is deeply felt, poetic filmmaking, though the unrelentingly dour tone isn't for everyone. [18 Oct 2012, p.41]

"The Illusionist" also centers on a 19th-century magician, and the elegant contours of its story are even more impressive compared with Nolan's clutter of double and triple crosses.

The script by Nicholas St. John (who would become a Ferrara regular) not only anticipates American Psycho but offers a fascinating look at New York's bohemian art scene circa 1979.

Funny, informative, and at times outrageously cheeky.

If you like Ryan and Robbins as much as I do, you'll probably feel indulgent and even charmed in spots; if you don't, you'll probably run screaming out of the theater.

Engaging and well acted, the film is admirably low-key, yet Burman's relaxed approach becomes a liability--everything goes down smoothly but leaves one hungry for something more substantial.

The script runs out of ideas long before he does, and the film doesn't build dramatically as much as it could. But it's an impressive debut, full of bizarre imagination and visual flair—a must for fans of offbeat horror films.

Extraordinary.