It's all quite deftly played with a maturity and introspection that may take you by surprise, though Sachs is perhaps too restrained in parts.

Works best of all as a vehicle for Richard Gere, who has simply never looked better or held the screen more securely.

A movie you've seen many times before, but the setting is different, its characters are well drawn and it delivers its uplifting message with succinctness, sincerity and skill.

Dizdar humorously compares and contrasts extremes in economics and lifestyles and looks at the west through the eyes of an outsider.

The result is like a "Waiting for Godot" for the video-game generation.

His persona clicks, the physical comedy amuses, and its comic vision is tantalizing enough to make us suspect the Old Master still may have at least one masterpiece in him trying to get out.

Isn't nearly as entertaining as it is predictable.

It may set itself up as a girlie film with "Ya-Ya" mystics (complete with candles and chanting), but sheds that motif for a much more grounded (and satisfying) film.

The stars ultimately carry the day, the film cumulatively builds both an emotional power and tender wisdom that's very affecting.

The film is many things: dark fable, gritty thriller, satirical social commentary, horror film and a love story that's blessed with a marvelous, near slapstick physicality.

Pacino has done more Shakespeare than any other currently bankable movie star, he has a feel for the language and he lends a genuine grandeur to Shylock's big speech of self-defense.

A film with a real depth, resonance and texture, and room for an ensemble of supporting characters.

Scores high on nastiness, but it has as many surprisingly funny moments as offensive ones.

Its strangely paced narrative line, its rich texture of eccentric characters, its high-contrast black-and-white photography - and its very '60s air of innocence and possibility - make this a surprisingly enjoyable little time capsule from a vanished world. [16 Feb 1990]

The film's only misstep is its again-used theme (especially when it comes to a woman's rite of passage) of exacting some punishing loss when our heroine pushes to transcend her limitations by seeking a better life.

There's no question where filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter's sympathy lies, but he makes his case leisurely, without hysteria and with much playful screen time devoted to the various interviewees' pet dogs.

Overcooked and simplistic in spots.

T. M. Griffin's script is imaginative and clever.

It is entertaining and eye-filling enough to appeal to a mainstream male audience. [22 May 1992]

Minghella does a good job of dashing any lingering image you might have of the Civil War as a conflict fought along neat geometric battle lines with the nobility of Appomattox.

While Shrek may trek into that dark territory and has some questionable values simmering beneath the surface, its characters are delightful enough and the film is just sweet-natured and visually sophiscated enough to avoid sinking into the swamp.

The horror and spectacle of medieval battle has never been re-created on film before with such ghastly beauty.

The filmmaker's vision is harrowingly ugly and profoundly upsetting every step of the way.

Offers compelling footage, but its revisionism can be distracting.

Actually, the film may be too grubby and sordid and ghoulish for its own box-office good. It's certainly going to send more than a few of the New Zealand director's sensitive women fans running from the auditorium.

The film tugs at us. And we forgive it its faults because it never loses sight of what it's supposed to be even though the story has a manipulative edge and maneuvers our feelings.

A cheerful and stylish romantic comedy that's easy on the eyes and ears, and makes few demands on the intellect.

The movie is 23 minutes longer than the Lean version, yet it somehow seems much less evocative of the novel's immense scope and texture. And its Cockney accents are such a strain to understand that as much as a third of the dialogue is indecipherable.