With his Jack Nicholson mannerisms extinguished and his boyish features made up to look worn and aged, Slater also makes us believe and care about this guy. A movie this marginal isn't likely to get much notice, but it's one of the very best things he has done.

What the film does extremely well is take us deep into the crime scene, and give faces to the victims so we can experience this epic, incomprehensible and somehow prototypically American act of violence on a more personal and intimate level.

Stunningly beautiful film.

The movie eventually settles down to become a routine thriller, but its first hour has moments of sheer brilliance as Andrew Klavan's screenplay and first-time director Jan Egleson build an agonizingly detailed satire of the hypocrisy and self-devouring nature of corporate America. [23 Mar 1990]

So Close is the film "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" dreams of being: sleek, silly, completely ridiculous and irresistible.

Less cartoonish and more generous than the original.

There is a heart-warming familiarity to much of its 2 1/2-hour tale, but the surprises around its edges gives Zelary a refreshing perspective.

What it lacks is an intensity, a passion at the center...It is, nonetheless, a lovely and often powerful film.

Hardly sophisticated, but it's as inspired as teen sex comedies get.

Don't let the title trick you. The British comedy Kinky Boots is probably the most kinkless film featuring fetish wear ever to strut its stilettoed heels across the silver screen.

Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) is real, and for all the dramatic license that writer/director Richard LaGravenese takes in his film, her story -- and the stories of her students -- are moving.

Director Emanuele Crialese captures a stifling, dead-end rural culture awash in nature's beauty but seething with pent-up sexual frustration.

The big downside of the film is that it always feels slightly contrived.

The earthy imagery is delicate while the drama is oddly elliptical, creating a lovely film of storybook images and parables. It's both obvious and elusive and, historical specifics aside, almost timeless.

Director Fred Schepisi has done an admirable job of making all the characters and their various interests clear, and he gets a fine, deglamorized and convincing performance from Pfeiffer as Connery's love interest. [22 Dec 1990]

A cogent, optimistic and mostly entertaining slice of ghetto life.

The film's take on media and personal responsibility recalls Brian De Palma's faux Iraq documentary, "Redacted," here dropped into a homefront turned guerrilla war zone.

Based more on rumor and supposition than fact. It's a highly entertaining set of hypotheses.

It's a rare film that's about social class in American life, and Bellingham writer-director Enid Zentelis explores its hidden structure and silent barriers in a novel, subtle way that makes its points without hitting us over the head with them.

A thrilling and scary ride.

A bit smarter than it seems at first glance, and ends up being a rather colorful and fascinating -- and often imaginatively Capraesque.

The first hour of the movie struck me as being truly inspired, and I haven't laughed so hard all year.

It's a little visually precious and obscure but still a marvelously wistful film of regret and retreat, in which even the magic wine of forgetfulness erases only the memories, not the pain.

It's a pleasure to see mature portraits of adult characters who put their vulnerabilities on the line. I enjoyed my time in the company of these strangers.

Surprisingly sweet and infectious.

As the film loses its focus on the "Protocols" phenomenon -- it becomes too scattered to have the impact Levin is after.

Chabrol's deliberate and drawn-out observations often work against the dramatic tension, but his gift is making the audience believe that emotion and obsession trump logic for these deluded characters.

The Pangs are at their best playing in the style sandbox, creating shivery imagery and eerie moods while exploring nothing deeper than irony and unease, as their climax so effectively demonstrates.