Mangold is something of a pseudo-Scorsese, assembling elements of other pictures like "Internal Affairs" and "Bad Lieutenant" into an eclectic mix that lacks its own vital reality.

The portraits are spare but right on target. And the film keeps you laughing even as you feel the pain of the characters.

Roberts and Gibson form a "pas de deux," two lonely urbanites fighting vague yet common enemies in a plot that never quite comes together.

A brutal black comedy. It asks real questions and takes real chances.

Think Batman on crystal meth.

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

It may sound sordid, but Arteta manages to bounce from brutality to comedy with only a few missteps -- and without the sweaty moralism that usually attends melodrama. The low-budget Star Maps may not be fully realized, but it's fully alive. [28 July 1997, p.69]

This true story, deftly embellished by writer Jeremy Brock and directed at a bracing English trot by John Madden, is a splendid showcase for its three superb leads. [28 July, 1997, p. 69]

Robert Zemeckis's movie is frustratingly uneven. When it's good, it's very good. And when it's not, it can be as silly and self-important as bad '50s sci-fi.

Face/Off is a summer movie extraordinaire: violent, imaginative, crazily funny and, oddly moving. Hollywood has finally wised up and let Hong Kong auteur John Woo strut his stuff in all its undiluted, over-the-top glory.

Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman has written quips, not characters and Joel Schumacher still seems miscast as a Bat-action director: he stages the mayhem confusingly and the comedy too broadly.

A romantic comedy for an era of diminished expectations.

Ulee's Gold possesses an attribute that's increasingly rare in American filmmaking, independent or Hollywood: call it soul.

The saving grace of Con Air is its sense of its own absurdity.

Greenaway uses the screen rather like the calligraphers of the story use the body so that the film becomes a kind of visual "pillow book;" a multi-layered series of inscriptions and reflections with almost hypnotic power.

For all the enhanced ingenuity of the special effects in The Lost World, the element of surprise and originality (the idea of cloning dinosaurs from fossilized DNA) is no longer present. And screenwriter David Koepp (the movie is very loosely based on Michael Crichton's sequel to his novel "Jurassic Park") has come up with a pretty conventional story line.

Urgently, without sentimentality, "La Promesse" shows us the birth of a conscience, and its cost. This fleet, powerful movie may prove to be a classic. [30 June 1997, p.79]

The secret of Volcano's success as a better-than-average disasterama is its nonstop pace.

A premise this preposterous must be carried off with unflappable comic conviction, and Cusack is just the right man for the job.

The film suffers dearly because of the two underwritten, emotionally unavailable characters at the film's center and when all is revealed at an amateur dance contest, the music — and the modicum of tension the movie has created — dies.

Smith startles us with raw emotional honesty.

A topical thriller that manages to be watchable despite director Alan J. Pakula's best efforts to take all the fun out of it.

Once Fletcher starts telling the truth against his will, the movie delivers some perfect laughs.

Crash has no plot to speak of. It's a cinematic tone poem of collisions and coitus.

Thanks to the superb cast and Mottola's deft touch, this modest-looking comedy proves quite memorable.

This is Depp's coming-of-age role, and he's terrific. Pacino, who's shown more flash than substance recently, reminds us how great he can be when he loses himself inside a character. The bond between these two makes the film sing.

In Lost Highway, reality has become a dream. But Lynch has forgotten how boring it is listening to someone else's dream.

Eastwood is at his effortless, slyboots best and the film is as preposterous as it is delightful.