Borrego, an awkward thriller pasted onto a moody strangers-forging-a-connection drama, doesn't allow itself to be what it so clearly wants to be.

Director Jonathan Sobol has an apt if not avid eye for gritty and colorful locations, and when the movie is at its most loose-limbed it’s a pleasure to watch. But around the time the director resorts to a trunk-point-of-view shot that’s turned into a not-terribly-flattering imitation of “Pulp Fiction,” The Padre begins to take itself more seriously than the wafer-thin back stories of the opposing characters should allow.

Damici gives his memorable protagonist enough life to hold it together more often that it would have otherwise. He’s great here. The movie around him, not so much.

I cannot lie, though. As cranky as much of the movie made me, Pastoll, Blaney, and especially Bolger all contrive to deliver as satisfying a climax and dénouement to this saga as one could hope for. So there is that.

Thankfully, the film does get better in its second half. Not a lot better, but enough to justify one’s continuing attention.

Mothers’ Instinct gets by on its pulpy potential more than anything else. There’s something intrinsically appealing about watching two phenomenal actresses go head-to-head in an old-fashioned melodrama.

For a film supposedly about the transformative power of faith, Captive has very little to preach in that regard, apart from the importance of purchasing megachurch pastor Rick Warren’s hit book, The Purpose Driven Life.

The overabundance of CGI is one of the bigger problems with Midway because, far too often, it feels like you’re watching a video game or an F/X highlight reel.

Laden with demoralizing tragedies, Haroula Rose’s film is only fleetingly affecting, preferring to put its characters through the wringer rather than provide them with much interiority or consistency. Without that depth, neither the external nor internal journeys of Once Upon a River captivate as much as they should.

The voice-over explains things that we could have understood from looking at the images. It rarely passes up the opportunity to drop in a cliche.

With Nocebo, Finnegan and his collaborators have put their finger on something dark and disturbing. Too bad it’s never as upsetting as it is suggestive.

Trouble is, Cassavetes — working from a script by Melissa K. Stack — veers wildly between cautionary tale, revenge comedy, scatological raunchfest and female empowerment drama.

By the end, “Find Me Falling” lands on uneven ground. It’s as if this lighthearted romantic comedy has its frothy bubbles burst by the sudden encroachment of dramatic interruptions and uninspired pop music and lyrics.

While I applaud Gertner’s attempt to make an action-adventure anthem film for the millennial generation of young women around the globe, Sheroes falls prey to too many predictable tropes for action, adventure, thriller, and girl genre films.

It admittedly comes to life in spurts primarily through its hyperkinetic photography and editing. Still, it lacks enough spontaneity or ingenuity, completely content to go through the motions by taking as few risks as possible. It turns out that there was a third option: Ride, Die, or Tread Water.

As the saying goes, inside of me are two wolves: one wishes “Out Come the Wolves” dared to explore the wounded masculinity and murderous love triangle of its first half, while the other wonders if that’d be any better or more interesting than the bone-cracking, arrow-shooting carnage of its second.

It’s an alternately quirky and intense flick that never quite lives up to its potential, but contains a twist or two you’re unlikely to see coming, and could appeal to viewers who miss the days of unpretentious B-movie glory that Orion once symbolized.

And the source of inspiration here is an affable role model, brought to life by “Stranger Things” actor Noah Schnapp with plenty of zest and believable innocence.

Carnaval is like Girls Trip by way of Brazil, but the acting and many of the comedy’s punchlines are fairly over-exaggerated. The four leads are just a step above stock characters.

Despite the care put into the story and its heavy themes, Live Cargo has no emotional impact.

American Dharma is a frustratingly hollow look at Bannon that is ultimately so benign in its portrayal of the man that it comes closer to an example of fan service than a full takedown.

The film takes only a moment to discuss the success of its source material. In fact, it is only at the end of the movie that "Desperate Souls" reveals that "Midnight Cowboy" won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Instead, the documentary spends too much time looking at the world around Schlesinger's drama.

To the credit of The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, the film knows its pop-culture touchstones (Groundhog Day and Time Bandits) and acknowledges the influence those Harold Ramis and Terry Gilliam classics have on its YA story. That doesn’t make the film particularly unique, but at least it makes The Map of Tiny Perfect Things honest.

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

The Legend of Cocaine Island feels like the kind of story that only could have gone down quite this way in the state that gave us “Florida Man.”

Rio 2 has exhausted its limited amount of charm. Most regrettably, Rita Moreno appears in her first movie in eight years as Jewel’s overbearing Aunt Mimi but is barely allowed to make an impression.

Based on the book by A.M. Shine, “The Watchers” is Ishana Night Shyamalan’s directorial debut, a fabled narrative that seesaws between fantastical whimsy and proposed horrific terror with lots of ambition but little finesse.

It’s all overly precious and just not funny enough, even if it is a blood-soaked tribute to those who would look at the story as just another day of underpaid work.