Intoxicatingly well-crafted entertainment about hunting down your enemy.

When a culture offers little more than death upon death, appreciating life's everyday beauty is as good an answer as these characters -- and this filmmaker -- can provide.

A light, breezy, often charming little film, with a good cast playing mostly shallow characters.

It may not look like anything he's done before, but Inland Empire joins "Mulholland" and the whatzit "Lost Highway" (1997) to form the strangest show-business triptych around. All three concern artists whose identities demand more than one body. The films give new meaning to the phrase "dual citizenship."

Down in the Delta's large heart is certainly in the right place, but it is beating just a bit too slowly. [25 Dec 1998, p.S]

There's genuine suspense and a lot of humor.

A near-classic, "Woman" is let down only by Bacon's sluggish helming. [15 Aug 1996, p.9A]

I’m not sure the story’s resolution entirely serves what comes before it; it’s not predictable, exactly, and it avoids turning into a different sort of genre just for thrills, yet Domont’s writing and direction are both skillful enough to make me want a few extra minutes in the final round.

Nair's film, her best in a long time, is hardly the first to use a chessboard as a symbol of one life's struggles. It is, however, one of the best.

Kim evokes everything from "Seconds" to "Nip/Tuck" here, but his sureness of touch and lack of melodrama make the themes pertinent and vivid. A heartening step up from Kim's previous film, "The Bow."

I appreciate Haynes’ craft and ambition. I love the Ledger/Gainsbourg scenes, which are sweet and sad and delicately shaded. And Blanchett’s inspired not-quite-impersonation of Dylan is reason enough to tussle with the rest of it.

But the biggest surprise is that Sinise steals scene after scene from Malkovich who has the flashier role. His work also has a quiet power, a tribute to the minimalist acting style that knows the camera can function as an X-ray if the characterization is true. [2 Oct 1992, p.C]

Even if “Inside Out 2” sometimes favors speed over, well, everything else, it’s gratifying to see an ordinary and, yes, anxious 13-year-old’s life, like millions and millions of lives right now, treated as plenty for a good, solid sequel, and without the dubious dramatics of the first movie’s climax.

Moretti gives us something different but very important. He shows us how life goes on.

Most of the performers have limited acting experience, but they are perfect for their parts, exhibiting the courage, stamina and wariness essential to live in such a harsh environment.

Like all the Coens' movies, "Man" is supremely self-aware and darkly, hellishly funny. It's also brilliantly written and acted to a fare-thee-well by an outrageously good cast.

As much a curiosity piece as anything else.

Close to perfect example of an expertly designed and executed thriller.

It's a terrific, kinetic experience, and it's also a brilliant showcase for a crackerjack ensemble of great actors.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is anything but light, though it very nearly is unbearable.

It’s wonderful to watch Gosling mine the non-verbal comedy in his character’s 50/50 swagger and insecurity. Blunt’s both a sterling comic foil and a soulful romantic one. Audiences crave romantic comedies with real wit, and the spirit of adventure, because romance is nothing without it. If someone could write one of those for these two, I’d appreciate it. The Fall Guy will do for now.

Unlike “Creed II,” which had little visual distinction and a storyline forgettable enough to send me straight to Wikipedia for a refresher, Creed III tries a few things. And it showcases two charismatic stars who are also genuine, ambitious actors.

Too often, though, the magic in Wicked remains stubbornly unmagical. And whenever Erivo isn’t around to make us believe, and take the mechanics of Wicked to heart, Part I reveals what’s behind the curtain, an adequate set-up for next November’s second act.

Featured a strong supporting cast that included another Oscar nominee, Thelma Ritter, as a wisecracking maid, and Tony Randall as Day's fussbudget suitor. [09 Sep 2011, p.C6]

The events are complicated, though not complicated by cheap thrills or easy politics. It's a film of interest rather than throttling suspense. By the end, however, when Bachmann's future depends on a very simple nonviolent series of events, Corbijn's methodical approach pays off. And we care. We care about the protagonist's outcome.

Part "Law & Order" morality play, part "Wall Street" with a dash of the more recent and topically pertinent "Margin Call," Arbitrage hums along, complicating its narrative without tying itself in knots.

Erotic, poetic and light on its feet. It's a portrayal of a runaway teenager's sexual initiation, and though it comes close to being exploitive, it keeps dancing away.

The movie slam-jams its overpacked story in a frenetic, needlessly complicated manner. It lacks for nothing in setting and atmosphere but comes up short where it counts: the characters.

Piani did the right thing in casting Rutherford, whose physical embodiment of Agathe suggests a tall, gangly, striking woman trying not to be seen. The actress leans into the character’s unsettled, often sullen side, though not at the expense of the comic tropes.

The movie, like Smith, is breezy, fun and keeps comin' at ya. [22 Dec 2006, p.5]

Lovely, heart-stirring film.

A clever, amiably low-key mix of family drama and romantic comedy.[18 August 1995, Friday, p.C]

One of those small films that will, one hopes, find a larger audience through word of mouth.

It has wit, originality, color, warmth and formal intelligence. It tempers its escapist dash with a touch of darkness, and for all of its playfulness, never departs from a fundamental seriousness.... Something Wild is superbly unpredictable. [7 Nov 1986]

There’s nothing vague about the narrative of The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Its strangeness is crystal clear. It plays out in ways both sardonically funny and extremely cruel.

Wind River is roughly 50 percent strengths, 50 percent contrivances. Often they collide in the same scene.

Based on a one-act play by Ferenc Molnar, and scripted by Wilder and his frequent collaborator, I.A.L. Diamond, One Two Three is all-Cagney all the time. [11 May 2001, p.C2]

Air is a good time, as well as a triumph of sports marketing in every conceivable way.

Astonishing, crazily delightful.

Hitchcock's most disturbing film. [26 Nov 1999, p.A]

The Spider-Man saga is a classic for a reason, and the filmmakers don't squander the material's strengths.

The movie’s sleekly assaultive aesthetic owes everything to the gaming world, but the amalgamation of practical, physical effects and digital flourishes, most evident in a motorcycle chase on the Verrazzano Bridge, take the movie out of an earthly realm entirely.

The Raid is maniacal in its pacing and assault tactics. It's also, absurdly, rated R. Fantastic. I love that a film this gory secured the same Motion Picture Association of America rating as "The King's Speech."

Writer-director-star Takeshi Kitano's 1993 Sonatine, a brutal, brilliant crime thriller about an aging gangster at the center of a maze of double-crosses and vendettas, gives us another look at a remarkable Japanese film artist. [17 Apr 1998, p.N]

Children and animals, if they're handled right, can be among the great natural movie actors, and in The Cave of the Yellow Dog, writer-director Byambasuren Davaa handles her cast of youngsters and creatures (and a few adults) heartwarmingly well.

What it all comes down to is the basic question: Is this just a movie for children? Not really. It's more a movie for the childlike--of any age. [02 July 1986, p.3C]

As is, it's worth seeing, but you may get frustrated at the way Dellal raises provocative questions about ancestry and prejudice, only to lose them in the shuffle of so many mini-portraits of musicians, getting to know each other and each other's foreign yet familiar musical language, on a long 16-city tour.

Parts of Sunset Song rank with Davies' very best work.

The movie itself is as slick, fast and terrifyingly violent as a top-grade American crime thriller, but a lot smarter than most.

You can't praise highly enough the contributions of the ensemble--De Niro and Pesci especially--but it's Scorsese's triumph. [22 November 1995, Tempo, p.1]

And yet if Re-Animator offers only a few laughs, that still puts it smiles ahead of George Romero`s awful ''Return of the Dead,'' the third in his zombie series, which suffered from tired blood. At least director Gordon`s ghoulies drool on naked women and decapitate each other with shovels. Hoe, hoe, hoe.

Fuller demonstrates a strong command over his visual domain, but the pat allegory he presents about the monsters with whom we have to learn to live feels a bit muddled.

These two actors have a kind of genius for dark comedy: Stiller for suffering through crises and De Niro for creating them.

The writing remains more intelligent than most thrillers, and the action is executed with such panache that even if you don't buy the reality of The Matrix, it's a helluva place to visit.

The relationship at the film’s center remains a combustible mystery.

Everything that was false about the tsunami sequence in the recent Clint Eastwood film 'Hereafter' - the bland overview perspectives, the lack of human immediacy - is corrected, terrifyingly, by the first half-hour of director J.A. Bayona's nerve-shredding docudrama 'The Impossible.'

A highly provocative documentary.

The third film, After the Life, much like "On the Run," mixes a hard-edged, relentless and stripped-down crime tale with a compassionate overview.

The movie is zippy, laugh-out-loud funny, persuasive and at times horrifying, as Spurlock undergoes his unpleasant changes with good humor and bad tummy aches.

An actor-turned-director, Stuhr appeared in many of Kieslowski's films and their partnership and friendship produced some stunning work. The Big Animal memorializes a complex man and his deceptively simple work, by a friend and colleague in a fitting tribute.

A virtuoso piece of dark storytelling.

The racial and sexual politics of Heading South may trouble some audiences; Cantet is definitely not a moralist in the usual sense.

The more you like Leone's work the more you'll likely respond to To's latest. Which is odd, considering Exiled is a gangster picture by strict definition.

A smart shocker, scripted by Twilight Zone regulars Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont.

The second, and some say best, of the "Road" series. Paramount's patty-caking pals, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, invade Lightest Africa for some songs, dances and snappy patter. [02 Apr 2000, p.38C]

Ichikawa's great anti-war film, about a Japanese soldier (Shoji Yasui) in Burma masquerading as a monk and falling into grace. [21 Nov 2008, p.C5]

One of the most original, appealing offbeat American films in recent years.

This Civil War epic romance is exquisitely shot, lovingly designed and populated with talented name actors. In terms of pedigree and sheer, lush filmmaking, the movie has class written all over it. And that's part of the problem.

It looks like director Parker, who can be quite ambitious (Mississippi Burning, Come See the Paradise), is coasting this time, merely reworking his big hit, Fame.

A ravishing portrait of Shanghai brothel life in the late 19th Century, shot entirely in one-take scenes in luxuriant red-and-gold interior sets. [02 Oct 1998, p.J]

A real charmer, Me and Orson Welles is the work of a director who takes nostalgia, romantic possibility and the theater seriously, without being a pill about it.

Doesn’t shy from heart-tugging opportunities, and there’s a five-minute cartoon embedded in the movie that should have been excised, but beyond those problems and some stylistic dead air, this is a compelling, thought-provoking portrait of a quiet challenge rising within America’s churches.

Doesn't quite work but is worth seeing anyway.

The film is rarely dull; it's one life-and-death sequence after another, and the filmmaking's efficient, crisply delivered. But Eastwood honors his subject without really getting under his skin.

Griffith gives the fullest performance of her career; Weaver, the most likable, even though she's the villain of the piece. Michael Nichols directs his best film in years. [23 Dec 1988, Friday, p.A]

Uneven but rollicking, The Pirates! has a personality to call its own.

Explores an unheralded but emotionally affecting issue in a straight-forward and engaging manner.

The movie’s a little thin; it’s also on the glib side regarding what, in the case of Wallace’s condition, qualifies as something deeper than a crummy anti-social attitude. But Kline, shooting on film in collaboration with the excellent cinematographer Sean Price Williams, explores a wide range of visual expressivity in Funny Pages.

Surprisingly lacking in revelatory moments.

As solid as the earth, rich as a good meal and sometimes funny as hell.

The director's return home here parallels that of Fernando, metaphorically and artistically. Our Lady of the Assassins is a film of clarity, feeling and electric intensity.

A beautiful and genuinely spirit-lifting film about poverty and education.

Ends up working like a charm.

It's good stuff: a non-fiction film on weighty issues that also manages to entertain.

It's the non-superhero elements of Spider-Man: Homecoming that make it a great movie, and a non-stop fun summer flick. There isn't an ounce of fat on this film, packing in so many story elements and characters, while finding room for small, funny asides and moments that make it an addictively rich, idiosyncratic and re-watchable movie.

Here's a funny, poignant oddball of a movie, existing on a galaxy far, far away from the likes of "Pacific Rim" or "World War Z" or anything whose computer-generated actions speak louder than words.

A film of fragile and esoteric pleasures, The Man in the Moon is not a movie that can be recommended to the general public and should probably even be protected from it. But for those who can respond to its tiny formal beauties, it is something to treasure. [04 Oct 1991, p.C]

With an excellent cast and style, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is one gorgeous and dynamic fractured fairy tale.

Pictorially sumptuous and sexually provocative.

Eastwood's foursquare directorial aesthetic tends to heighten, rather than camouflage, a screenplay's shortcomings.

A sleek, tight, fastidiously executed nothing.

Covino’s filmmaking is tremendously appealing, buoyant and playful, and in Splitsville, he dials everything up from The Climb, especially the comedy.

Some may find Results a little light on plot (it is). But with the Smulders character, we're treated to a refreshingly dimensional female lead. Kat isn't one of those aggravating Type A Katherine Heigl cliches. Nor is she a mere attractive doormat. She's prickly, a little lost, but running her own show, and on the road to something better.

Whatever you do, don't leave before watching the snippets that run during the closing credits--the self-referential, tongue in cheek "outtakes" are quite possibly the funniest part of this movie--a visual stunner that seems to have misplaced its heart.

Takes the raw truth and makes it jubilantly, terrifically entertaining.

Warts, entrails and all, I had a ball at Zombieland. It’s 81 minutes of my kind of stupid.

What really makes Alias Betty stand out, even from good recent French ensemble films like "Eight Women" and "Venus Beauty Institute," is that ingenious, Rendell-derived story. To kidnap an old phrase, it's a corker.

A fascinating examination of the joyous, turbulent self-discovery made by a proper, middle-aged woman.