Imagine a bolder "Bully" blended with a more probing "River's Edge" and you'll have some idea of this little drama's strong dramatic and emotional power.

Mongol is a throwback to a more respectable tradition. The largeness of its scope arises naturally from the material, not the budget. The movie earns its stature.

Taking great commercial risks, director Martin Scorsese avoids movie-star performances and the psychological storytelling that Hollywood movies normally thrive on.

If Armageddon Time simply recounted Paul’s coming-of-age, complete with a hefty serving of family spats, it wouldn’t have the resonance it often exhibits at its best. The friendship between Paul and Johnny, even more than Paul’s relationship with his grandfather, is the film’s emotional core.

As a piece of filmmaking, Munich is rarely less than gripping. As a political essay, as a brief against despair, it is far less convincing.

You never know what to expect from Boyle, and that goes triple in this offbeat comedy drama. It's a movie about family that family viewers will find good, quirky fun.

A second-rate adaptation of the second-rate Choderlos de Laclos novel: two hours of pretty people sitting in pretty rooms and talking about sex. [23 Dec 1988, A& L, p.19]

Strikingly original movie.

The story that Hidden Figures tells is so irresistible that you can almost forgive the fact that the movie itself is resistibly unoriginal. It’s an unabashed crowd-pleaser with a heavy history lesson undertow.

Anonyma stands out in A Woman in Berlin not only because of her ragged nobility but also because, alas, Färberböck has surrounded her with a gaggle of Berliners who seem right out of Central Casting.

Although the film doesn't probe Whale's personality as deeply as it might, the acting is excellent and movie buffs will enjoy its behind-the-scenes references and nostalgic film clips.

One of the few open-minded Hollywood movies about Christian fundamentalism, but the mind isn't sufficiently exploratory.

Draggy Italian epic that's big on production values but skimpy on inspiration.

The Town might have amounted to something more than an occasionally good movie about crooks in trouble. There's a knife-edge here, but it's been blunted.

Thematically at least, it’s like a John Ford movie with pickup trucks. But everything plays out with a sodden deliberateness, as if something mythic were going on. No such luck.

The reason we feel so close to Socha, a man who at first seems nothing more than a racist scoundrel, is that his moral odyssey, with its advances and retreats, is so emotionally believable.

There's an original comic temperament at work here, and that's rare.

Dieckmann's debut film is skillfully acted, and builds a sense of true menace.

A pretty good example of the kind of movie Hollywood used to turn out by the yard.

The film’s thesis is that the struggle to survive did not end with the camps. Each of the women profiled recounts, with varying degrees of intensity, the difficulties in creating a “normal” life in a world where the concept of “home” can no longer fully resonate.

There are many kinds of heroism, of course, but the version on display in Sully is, well, unsullied, and that sort of thing is more suitable for a monument than a movie.

Although some of the acting is strong, the atmosphere is so relentlessly sleazy that many moviegoers will want to go long before the final credits.

It gives ample play to all sides of the argument. Herzog allows us to think things through on our own.

Nolan tries to pair the cosmic esoterica with this father-daughter tussle, but the mix doesn't jell. Visionary movies require a bigger vision.

As this film demonstrates in so many ways, the intractability of the Arab-Israeli political situation is, to put it mildly, not easily resolved, least of all onscreen.

The acting and screenplay are amusing, but director Sitch might have taken a more adventurous approach to a tale with such an adventurous subject.

The story is so important and compelling that you wish Jewison had treated it more as an urgent wake-up call than a by-the-numbers morality play.

Trumpets the worthwhile message that ballet is just as manly and athletic as any other masculine activity - and maybe a touch more so, if you have to defy an uncomprehending community in order to pursue it.

Distinctive feel.

The animation is consistently sporty and there are some choice comic riffs on martial arts movies.

The Duke is a genial British entertainment that, at its best, reminded me a bit of those wonderful postwar Ealing Studio films like “The Lavender Hill Mob” and “The Ladykillers.”

Measured against family-film classics like The Wizard of Oz or The Black Stallion, to mention just two of my favorites, The Secret Garden is a bit slender, neither as ingeniously inventive nor as majestically mysterious as the best of its breed.

If the literacy of The History Boys is deemed uncinematic, then give me uncinema anytime.

Stunning.

It starts slowly, but builds to a spectacular climax with hearty sound effects and deftly directed stunts.

The sunniness of Fastball leaves out a lot, but watching it can be as pleasurable as an afternoon at the ballpark.

Invictus has an understated grace, but too often it comes across as hero-worshipy.

Tim Burton's fantasy is more original than his previous film, “Batman,'' and its colors make “Dick Tracy'' look drab. Add wry dialogue and a mischievous critique of suburban life, and you have a diverting fable that doesn't quite live up to its quirky premise. [7 Dec 1990, Arts, p.12]

It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy posing as hard-edged realism.

I suppose the relationship is Oedipal or primal or something or other, but mostly it’s just an excuse for Dolan to stage a series of gaudy shout-fests.

Amir Bar-Lev's documentary is fascinating on all kinds of levels: as a movie about the nature of art, the lure and pitfalls of celebrity, and the complicated conundrums of parenting.

Not always believable, but the film has a moody expressiveness that stays with you.

Barry Levinson's dark comedy is sly, funny, and unnerving.

A feast for Neil Young lovers and initiates alike.

The film, directed by Maria Schrader and written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, doesn’t add much to the existing record. What it does do, when it’s good, is something the news headlines could not: It dramatizes the survivors’ voices on camera.

The dialogue and acting are stagy at times, especially in the early scenes, but the characters are compelling and the Indian atmosphere is vividly sketched.

Superbly acted, cleverly written, sensitively directed.

Sarandon narrates and Ormond reads excerpts from Hahn's memoir, supplemented by archival footage and interviews with the survivor herself.

The quartet appears to be mightily lacking in the brains and judgment departments, but at least it tries to do something about its failings, employing a traveling psychotherapist whose interventions and ruminations provide some of the film's most unwittingly amusing moments.

In Source Code, the new thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, "Groundhog Day" goes metaphysical. Some people, I know, will argue that "Groundhog Day" was already metaphysical. Perhaps, but compared with "Source Code," it's "Caddyshack."

The sometimes agonizingly powerful documentary Under Fire: Journalists in Combat is built around some staggering statistics: Only two journalists were killed in World War I. Sixty-three lost their lives in World War II. And in the past two decades, almost one journalist per week has been killed.

Interviewed in the film, Juárez journalist Sandra Rodriguez offers up this grim summation: “That these people represent the ideal of success, impunity, and limitless power is symptomatic of how defeated we are as a society.”

Without Cooper's performance, Breach would have been a good, workmanlike thriller. His presence lifts it to a whole new level.

Sensitive, imaginative.

Such understated storytelling, sensitive directing, and avoidance of easy filmmaking tricks are all too rare in American movies. This is truly one from the heart.

Labors mightily to be as offensive and obnoxious as possible. It's inventive in an idiotic sort of way, though, and pauses occasionally to make serious points about movie violence and censorship.

It's not a pretty picture, but it won't be soon forgotten by thriller fans with nerves and stomachs steely enough to take its violence in stride.

Brooks endows Japanese Story with a fair measure of suspense, pathos, and romance, despite the challenge of conjuring these qualities from only two main characters and not much else to look at in many scenes but sand, sand, sand.

Contains amazingly candid views of warriors behind the scenes of battle.

There are some touching interactions between the players, but the film’s humanism is too predictably calibrated.

It’s a good bet that the director had “High Noon” in mind when he made this film, but the comparison ends there. As a compact study of wartime guilt, the film has the look and feel of a waking nightmare.

Set in an exotic world inhabited by humanoids of wildly different sizes, the fantasy reflects the interest of director Laloux and designer Roland Topor in surrealistic art. [24 Dec 1999, p.B6]

Penn has a real feeling for the stray moments in life that suddenly rush up and overwhelm us with emotion. He also has an eye for beauty in the wilds, of which this film has many. And he's very good with actors. What he lacks is a sharper eye for the wooziness of romanticism, and that wooziness, despite some truly breathtaking moments, infuses Into the Wild.

What is strikingly brought home in “Rumble” is how the vast stew of influences in American music, rather than diluting everything, makes the music all the more powerful.

A brisk, black-and-white, worst-possible-case dinner party scenario overflowing with good actors and bad vibes.

Probably the most faithful to the writer's tortured spirit. It's the kind of movie that gets under your skin - and stays there.

The violent story is standard "film noir" fare, but Soderbergh treats it with oomph and imagination.

Provides an intelligent, deeply personal view of social and political issues that are longstanding and complex but not, she insists, intractable.

Hearing her speak her finely honed mind in unscripted, un-"handled" terms is worth the price of admission in itself.

Rust and Bone is made by filmmakers and actors who are capable of much more – and they know it. The result is a true oddity: an orgy of hokum dressed up as an art film.

Over time, though, with films such as "Lost Highway" and, to a lesser extent, "Mulholland Drive," Lynch's movies became less personal and more private. Whatever he is working out in his new film, Inland Empire, it's beyond the reach of all but his idolators.

The sources of this happiness become far more complex when Adrien’s revelation is imparted (only to Anna). At this point the movie’s moral compass spins.

Iwai's ambitious drama is strikingly shot, poignantly acted by a splendid young cast, and enriched by surprising use of Debussy classics on the soundtrack.

At times the film resembles a promo for Shortz and the Times, and the celebrity puzzlers, who include filmmaker Ken Burns, Bill Clinton, and the Indigo Girls, have an unfortunate tendency to bloviate. Not so Jon Stewart, who seems to regard each Times puzzle as an opportunity to go mano a mano with Shortz.

Despite the film’s emphasis on Ryota’s transformation, the most piercing moment for me came in the scene in which his wife anguishes over her guilt in not realizing right away, as a mother, that Keita was not her birth son.

Well, it is shameless, and it tugs the heart in all the obvious places, but it has a winning vivaciousness and a trio of performances by its lead actors that transcend its “inspirational” niche.

It offers a refreshing perspective on mental health that draws in new audiences while reminding the rest of us why we continue to watch the studio’s films.

Who would have guessed a documentary about Derrida, the great French philosopher of deconstruction and "différence," would be so entertaining?

Moretti's acting skills aren't up to the demands of the main role, and his portrait of family life is too simplistic to be credible.

Most of the way this ranks with the Coens' most immaculately crafted work. Cain would have loved its dreamlike chills, and so will audiences nostalgic for the movies of half a century ago.

The best scenes capture the blend of irony, melodrama, and real emotion that distinguishes Fassbinder's most memorable pictures.

This time it's just chasing, fistfighting, and shooting. A disappointment from the director of "Bloody Sunday."

The veteran rock musician Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and John Hillcoat directed, both somewhat in thrall to Sam Peckinpah. The bonds of family are the centerpiece of this highly uneven, hyperviolent film.

It's as elegant as any movie around, though, and boasts strong acting by a distinguished cast.

Hoffman, bloated and flushed, does not look well in this film. But he is such a consummate actor that whatever infirmities he may have been fighting become a part of his performance. His portrayal, complete with a convincing German accent, is a fully rounded portrait of courage and dissolution.

What rescues the movie from being mere flimsy fun is Rutherford’s performance. She gives Agathe’s waywardness a gravity, a hint of darkness.

It's a strange, one-of-a-kind film that was to be Benacarraf's only full-length feature.

Poignant, spirited, revealing.

This is a riveting treatment of a fascinating subject.

The story evokes a lot of varied emotions, but none runs more than an inch below skin deep.

Snow is a full-fledged genius who enlarged the fundamental horizons of cinema with his classic "Wavelength," but here his aesthetic and philosophical ideas don't quite keep pace with his technological boldness.

The documentary is revealing and chilling, although it doesn't explore the inner workings of the American criminal-justice system as thoroughly as one might wish.

The film is gracefully directed around the edges, but the core story, a kind of existential murder mystery, is swallowed up by a series of increasingly outlandish plot devices involving drug runners and Tarantino-esque shootouts.

The film wants to be a wing-ding entertainment, but it also strives to say Something Important. The first half of that equation is what makes the movie eminently worth watching.

Their shenanigans rarely run short of explosive energy.

Thoughtfully directed by the versatile Iain Softely from Hossein Amini's screenplay, which reduces James's intricately structured narrative to feature-film scale without losing the book's rueful psychological tone.

Extraordinary stunt and fight work and nonstop excitement, but a warning to those who are at all squeamish: this may be the most violent movie I've ever seen.

Directed with the blend of moody atmosphere and punchy violence that has made Kitano one of Japan's most powerful culture heroes. [10 Apr 1998, p.B2]