By design, the dialogue from the (fictional) play comments directly on the central, shifting power relationship in the film, sometimes elegantly, sometimes a little awkwardly.

Alas, the movie cannot resolve its story in any sort of surprising or truly fresh way. Where's a good old-fashioned deus ex machina capper when you need it? It's worth seeing nonetheless.

True Story is a case of a well-crafted film, made by a first-time feature director with an impressive theatrical pedigree, that nonetheless struggles to locate the reasons for telling its story.

Broken Horses raises the question of what is cockamamie, and what is cockamamie and outlandish and ridiculous yet a perfectly swell time for those very reasons. This one's just cockamamie without the swell part.

Even when Eastwood and Robertson, pleasant enough company, threaten to float off the screen, The Longest Ride glides along and delivers its reheated comfort food by the ton.

Is what we see grief porn or an epic, careerlong study in the best and worst we can find on Earth? See the film and decide for yourself.

As Cornelia's revered documentary filmmaker father, a crusty truth-teller in the Frederick Wiseman mold, Charles Grodin provides a master class in minimalism.

There's really no other word for what Helen Mirren is doing in certain reaction shots, out of subtle interpretive desperation: mugging. She's mugging. She is a sublimely talented performer, and this is material with fascinating implications, and I doubt there's a moviegoer in the world who doesn't like Helen Mirren. But even the best actors need a director to tell them to tone it down.

It's roughly as realistic as Georges Melies' "A Trip to the Moon," of course. But revisiting our old pals (one of whom is played by an actor who is no longer with us) and watching them survive one unsurvivable collision or plunge after another, continues against the odds to have a walloping charm all its own.

There's a delayed-secret hitch in the narrative that hijacks the movie, for better or worse. You don't have to believe any of it to enjoy a lot of it, however.

It's a mystery why two bona fide comic stars, working very, very hard to keep this thing from tanking, couldn't pressure their collaborators for another rewrite or three.

The movie is pretty droll, and it agitates for cross-species friendship; its aggressively packaged heart-tugging elements come with an interplanetary friendly resolution. Followed by a dance party.

Engrossing and weirdly funny.

From its first moments, the new documentary The Hunting Ground instills a sense of dread that is very, very tough to shake.

The actors are more or less saving this franchise's bacon. Insurgent is a tick or two livelier than the first one.

Director Morel brings some style and speed to the proceedings, though I found The Gunman increasingly numbing in the carnage department. Compared with someone like Neeson, Penn's avenging angel is a less relatable fellow.

Swift and exciting, with no taste for the usual war movie heroics, first-time feature film director Yann Demange's film belongs on a short list of immersive, rattling, authentic fictions right next door to the fact of survival inside a war zone.

Directed, frantically, by Jaume Collet-Serra, written by Brad Ingelsby, Run All Night promises a sprint punctuated by a lot of gunfire, and bleeding, and bodies. Mission accomplished.

Branagh's regular composer, Patrick Doyle, delivers a persistent dribbling stream of forgettable mood music, and that's too bad; most of the scenes are acted so well, you don't want anything competing with them.

It's a strange, fascinating exercise in what Joel Coen once described as "tone management," job No. 1 for any director.

A misjudgment from metallic head to titanium toe.

The movie's smooth to the point of blandness, but its faces really do tell a story. And having Gere's silverly mane share the same film with Strathairn's is almost too much fabulous hair for one diversion.

Screen chemistry between two individuals isn't really a pass/fail proposition. There are degrees involved. But let's pretend otherwise and say yes, Smith and Robbie pass, barely, with less than flying colors and in a pretty dull movie.

Betzer's title suggests a hardy spirit and the resilience of childhood; the story, which unfolds in elliptical but often intriguing chapters, indicates the healing might be a little more complicated and difficult.

Like the great, bittersweet Thomas Dyja account of Chicago's 20th century, "The Third Coast," Hogtown is hip to both the glories and the disgraces any great city can claim.

A small, shrewd movie about large, messy emotions and regrets. It is a grown-up work about people who grow up the hard way, leaving one heart in disrepair and the other in reckless forward motion. It's a sad piece, but not maudlin.

Whitman's a wily cross between Janeane Garofalo and Ellen Page and in her scenes with her motivational-speaker single mother (Allison Janney), you sense a better movie lurking in the shadows.

It's nice to see a movie that is, well, nice. Nice but not dumb. It's also a comfortable fit for Costner.