Simply falls short.

The main distinguishing feature of this film is its almost-novel nesting-doll plot structure, and passing thematic interest in its narrative's formulaic nature.

Anthropoid has one hell of a story to tell, a story that once again reminds us of a savagery that is not so far in humanity’s past that we need to stop being reminded of it.

We Live in Time is a film that looks you in the eyes as it tugs on your heartstrings, a movie that would almost certainly fall apart with lesser performers to make this kind of shallow script feel organic. Luckily, this one has Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

Rich in impulsive sensuality and knowing humor, the film captivates even as it stumbles through too many subplots. It’s a tad convoluted but never dull.

If this flawed final outing is, indeed, the last we see of Tommy Shelby, it’s still a heck of a note for the man who plays him to ride out on.

It isn’t until deep into “Moonlight Sonata” that you start to realize how many patterns Brodsky has woven into the fabric of this tale.

Corbijn, as has been his custom in directing features, goes for mood and feel rather than narrative momentum, although his scope is clearly hemmed-in by the production’s budget; there’s not much here in the way of effective ‘50s-New-York evocation. But the actors and their exchanges ring true, and by the time the film reaches its lonesome conclusion, the resonances are eerie.

Too often, Kane and Koury don’t seem to trust entirely what they have, and they needlessly pad Voyeur with miniatures, re-enactments and an overall light, playful tone. It all seems at odds with the story’s fundamentally disturbing — yet gripping — content.

Pacino dials down the manic, wide-eyed “Hoo-ah!” that has defined his screen presence over the past couple decades, and often rendered the Method master a parody of himself.

Although their work is ultimately not enough to make “See for Me” anything more than a gimmick movie that never quite pays off, Davenport almost makes it worth watching and will leave you wondering about what they could accomplish with stronger material.

Though it's a well-done family drama, White Boy Rick is a half-told story that only lightly incorporates the deeper issues of systemic injustice. The black characters feel shortchanged in comparison to their white co-stars; even Rick’s closest friend, Boo (RJ Cyler), feels unremarkable. Despite these flaws, the performances in the movie are strong.

These episodic sketches immediately feel monotonous since the plot isn't arranged in chronological or sequential order; leaps in time from 1945 back to 1941 and then forward to eventually 1944 are a distracting overcompensation for an otherwise lifeless chain of impersonal betrayals, cold-blooded murders, and unbelievable moping from all involved.

Maria Schneider’s story is a tragic and often infuriating one, and “Being Maria” captures the complexity of the situation.

This recent The Secret Garden both respects and admires children’s imagination as its young characters discover their own way to grapple with loss, isolation, and loneliness.

The absurdist sectarian comedy gives way, as it inevitably does in this conflict, to tragedy, and death both human and animal. While Shomali resists easy cynicism while seeming to have almost every excuse to indulge it, he doesn’t try to craft a hopeful parable out of his material either.

Lousy Carter, at its best, feels like a cruel joke on its own protagonist, the kind of guy so convinced of his own genius he doesn’t want to mess it up by actually putting himself out there.

What Taylor and his game cast, led by Selma Blair and Nicolas Cage, do get right will leave you excited, and eager for more.

Only the most committed genre fans and academic-minded masochists will want to hang around until the bitter, arthouse-meets-choose-your-own-adventure style ending.

It’s one of those inspirational Hollywood dramas about which there isn’t anything "overtly wrong" with it. It’s well-cast, it looks great, it has that intense centerpiece in the raft, and it certainly conveys a true story worth telling. And yet I keep coming back to that beautiful sunrise that opens the film. It’s just too damn pretty.

The one major problem with Into the Forest, the one that keeps it from making that final leap of good movie to a potentially great one, is that the final third is just not quite as strong as the stuff that precedes it.

In addition to serving up heaping helpings of suspense and action, “Fuze” abounds in twists.

Lively is superb here, giving one of those hyper-focused, action-lead performances that's as much an athletic feat as an aesthetic one.

The fact is that as good as Plummer and McDermott are here, Ford ultimately writes himself into a corner that requires actions in the final act that don’t ring true.

As a piece of filmmaking, Torn is slightly above TV-movie quality.

The movie, starring Zabou Breitman, Jacque Gamblin, Pascal Elbé, Sylvie Testud, and Tony Harrisson, has a more upsetting dimension than most suspense dramas as it’s based on a true story, a story that touches on issues still roiling France today.

Frustrating in its repetitiveness, Leon’s third feature is like a narrative exercise fascinated by both memory and youth. Italian Studies relentlessly experiments with form, but fails to fully congeal.

The Best Man Holiday has the potential to become a staple of Christmastime movie watching in the 'hood.