Sometimes flat, The Human Factor is nonetheless a lucidly impressive return to form for the 73-year-old director. It's not really a thriller at all, but an understated, uncompromising dissection of an event: an anatomy of the murder of a soul. [11 Feb 1980, p.82]

For a number of reasons The Duchess isn't all it could have been. It's fun, but falls short of fabulous.

An over-the-top thriller, too loosely tethered to reality to be a lesson about anything other than the limits of popcorn consumption.

Though The Bounty is almost willfully perverse in thwarting audience expectations, and though it ends anticlimactically, you can't dismiss it. You know you've seen something. A spell, however faint, has been cast, like the one the island casts on the Bounty's crew. [14 May 1984, p.81]

Henry & June doesn't finally cohere, but there's something noble in its evocation of the erotic in all its pleasure and pathos. [22 Oct 1990, p.74]

Director Harold Becker ("The Onion Field," "Sea of Love") makes "City Hall" absorbing in its evocation of New York fauna and rhythms. The problem is in the screenplay. [19 Feb 1996, p.68]

This material is charged enough without piling on the melodrama and the lip-smacking violence. The movie too often sacrifices reportage for razzle-dazzle.

Working Girls has its shortcomings (the madam is too caricatured, the script occasionally reads like rehashed research), but the film, a fiction with the conviction of a documentary, fascinates and provokes. [06 Apr 1987, p.64]

What really puts Alligator above all the other Jaws"ripoffs is its snappy sense of humor. [20 Apr 1981, p.93]

Their best work since the fresh and appealing studies in cultural clash they made in India in the '60s, such as "Shakespeare Wallah." Movies are not literature, and Ivory is a dangerously literary director. But in Quartet he has found the images to express Jean Rhys's troubling vision of female fatality. [9 Nov 1981, p.94]

The women in this smart, highly entertaining comedy don't pack guns, but relations between the sexes are such that a well-placed knee in the groin can come in handy.

Pretty charming. Audiences may like it more than critics, but everyone should agree it's one of the most wickedly stylish movies of the year.

The preposterousness of the premise (concocted by writers Perry Howze and Randy Howze) is the appeal of Chances Are. The problem is the execution. Where "Heaven Can Wait" seduced you into belief with its expert comic timing and romantic urgency, director Emile ("Dirty Dancing") Ardolino's fantasy grows increasingly labored as it piles improbability upon psychological impossibility. [20 March 1989, p.83]

De Palma's takeoff on the Godfather genre doesn't have the subversive slyness of Prizzi's Honor. Wise Guys aims lower, but that's an honorable direction in which to aim, and De Palma and writer George Gallo riddle the belly with dumdum laugh bullets. [19 May 1986, p.73]

Woody Allen is back in sharp comic form, though it's likely that his abrasive black comedy Deconstructing Harry will alienate as many people as it tickles.

Gibson is right at home as the wisecracking gambler, and Foster, though slightly squirmy in this burlesque, hints at a free comic side. But it's the veteran's show. Garner wears his you-can't-put-one-over-on-me character like a pair of fine weathered boots. With his breaking half-smile, he's irresistible. [20 May 1994, p.64]

Watching Moore battle the heavy odds may be formulaic fun, but it's genuine fun, and the formula is classic.

The overall effect of Grenaway's film is mixed: disturbing, too schematic to be entirely convincing, unforgettable as few movies are. A key element is the powerful acting of a distinguished cast. [23 Apr 1990, p.73]

A cliffhanger with no real ending. When the lights come up, think of it as the start of a six-month intermission. For better and worse, Reloaded leaves you hungry for more.

The script is lame...but U-571 works, thanks to the jittery handheld-camera work, the great, visceral sound editing and a few sneaky plot twists.

Alternately enrapturing and exhausting, brilliant and glib, this is a "Romeo and Juliet" more for the eyes than the ears. [4 Nov 1996, pg.73]

While this accomplished film holds you in its grip, it doesn't convince. The revelatory urgency that made Selby's book a literary scandal is long gone. [14 May 1990, p.75]

What first feels like thin skit material gets funnier and sweeter. Damon and Kinnear make a terrific team.

Tom Hanks displays his usual comic finesse as Friday's rule-bending new sidekick, but it's Aykroyd's movie -- what movie there it. The fact is, ma'am, this Dragnet doesn't add up to much. [13 July 1987, p.60]

This time out, Shyamalan the writer lets Shyamalan the director down badly.

For all its parodic elements, this clever 'whodunit' leaves us squirming and wincing at each slash of the killer. Prepare for a surprise and beware the person enjoying the film right next to you.

Iceman may boil down to a disappointingly sentimental/mystical concept, but Schepisi is such a fluid, exciting filmmaker that you remain thrilled by his images even if you're dismayed by the direction the plot takes. [16 Apr 1984, p.92]