There’s a claustrophobic cause-and-effect in The Rental that keeps it humming, and feels fresh. The minute that two characters make a crucial decision, you know it’s all downhill from there.

With Radioactive, Satrapi eschews traditional biopic notions in favor of a more daring approach. But the execution is frustratingly inconsistent, with a time-hopping structure that’s more jarring than thrilling.

Guest Artist feels like a typical one-act, intelligent but not especially distinctive or compelling.

There's a lot of interesting things here and yet Flannery feels incomplete, and — worse — a little bit scared to go in for a much deeper dive.

One of Bress’ greatest strokes comes with casting — he’s collected five faces you might recognize from younger, more innocent roles, and who are compelling to see here as men who have matured rapidly due to the wartime experiences eating away at them.

If A Nice Girl Like You would have stayed the course of the book it’s based on, Ayn Carrillo-Gailey’s 2007 memoir Pornology, it might have been an interesting enough premise. Instead, Andrea Marcellus’ screen adaptation whitewashes the main character and moves the narrative into a more conventional territory, one centered on love over lust, tame over the risque.

What I enjoyed most about the film is how it illustrates the ways in which we view life through the prism of art in order to reach a deeper understanding of it.

The film is a little too scattershot for its own good, which becomes especially frustrating when some of these detours actually come across as potentially being far more interesting than the central narrative thread.

For those who like their romance movies filled with unnecessary mysteries, murdered dogs, poached lobsters and the ghosts of deceased little girls, Dirt Music will fit the bill. All others need not apply, not even if you’re into the kind of Nicholas Sparks-style drama this movie shamelessly marinates in for an interminable 105 minutes.

It’s in trying to locate the — for lack of a better term — heart of the movie where problems emerge.

Directors Leslye Davis and Catrin Einhorn present the film in an intimate, unobtrusive, understated style. They have the luxury of time so everyone on screen is completely relaxed and open, seemingly forgetting the cameras are there. Spending years with the family gives the story additional scope and depth.

Their game of cat-and-mouse is not meant to be original in the slightest, but there's no good reason for it to be this dull.

More than anything else, though, Decade of Fire succeeds as one of the best explanations in recent cinema of what the phrase "systemic racism" means.

The final four minutes turn what was already a fine picture into an unforgettable one, affirming Morchhale’s status as one of the most exciting figures of the Indian new wave.

A movie that bases part of its drab period fiction on the fantasy of getting Freud’s friendly advice, all for the price of a good cigar. But the script, based on a revered novel from Robert Seethaler, concerns more serious themes than Freud's off-hand advice, though its shallow storytelling gives little to contemplate.

There aren’t many surprises here, because the bread crumbs that lead to the movie’s big finish are plentiful and very stale. Seriously, the plot twists in this movie are so obvious and unappetizing that you couldn’t miss them if you tried.

Guest of Honour, a knotty memory play and character study that, not unsurprisingly, screened at last fall’s Toronto fest, is a gratifyingly solid work that benefits from first-rate performers and a knowing location nose for the scruffier corners of Hamilton, Ontario.

A relentless, but emotionally well-balanced character study of Hikari (Keita Ninomiya) and his bandmates as they receive a series of transformative reality checks, and also perform post-millennial garage rock that sounds like a cross between post-shoegaze emo rock and video-game-style chiptunes.

Archive is a somewhat unwieldy sci-fi thriller to get into. The plot twists are many, and so are the cliches.

Bursting with humanity, grounded in humility, and in love with the poetry of faces, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a classic indie film that will irritate or mystify some viewers while inspiring evangelical fervor in others.

Greyhound starts to become numbing in its tactics, a film that’s simplicity feels more shallow than lean. And, yes, there is a difference.

In addition to observing the humanity of its heroes, The Old Guard also employs Prince-Bythewood’s penchant for grandiose, melodramatic gestures that shouldn’t work at all yet play out masterfully.

With all the humor, though, the film strikes an unexpectedly tender almost bittersweet chord, the humor shadowed by sorrow, loneliness, helplessness.

Olympia has the usual biographical documentary structure, though it's a bit of a hodge-podge, following Dukakis to a festival, a rehearsal, awards events, at home, intercut with archival footage and comments from friends, colleagues, and family.

After a slightly rocky first act that succumbs to thin generational differences, Brown allows his slow burn to catch fire and doesn’t look back. You may be regretting not being able to visit the beach this summer. Maybe it’s for the best.

Documentary filmmakers Cristina Costantini (“Science Fair”) and Kareem Tabsch (“The Last Resort”) celebrate and eulogize the late showman with disarming zest and respect, unpacking how he and his horoscopes became staples of the Latin culture over the years.

Agonizing, blandly shot Desperados, which is among the most abysmal romantic comedies that came out of this century.

Yet while the doc might prove that his approach worked, it’s progressively tedious to revisit these hits through such a thick air of self-affirmation.