Political thrillers with flawed heroes demand a different potion, one that mixes the grit of reality with the seeds of excitement until they reach a critical mass and explode. In that sense, for all its strengths and good intentions, The Debt owes a debt to the wrong genre – Birkenau wasn't fantasy; too often, this movie is.

Of course, bad writing can undo the best actor. If you doubt that, check out De Niro's soliloquy at the film's climax. He's acting the heck out of the words, but they're still dragging him down with them.

Yet these are precisely the sort of pictures that divide audiences over a central question: Are those strings being honestly played or just shamefully pulled? Of course, the answer determines whether you feel moved or merely manipulated.

Does not disappoint expectations: This is not a case of dumbing down literature; it's mediocrity aimed for and successfully achieved.

Almost a comedy, though not an entirely successful one: It's too acerbic to be funny and too detached to be really moving.

The treat in Trick or Treat is that the film has a sense of humor about itself, and a genuine feeling for the travails that follow puberty. [29 Oct 1986, p.D10]

Bushwick is an unpolished work, but there's an adrenalin charge, sure thing. It's close combat and it's closer than most Americans might wish to believe.

Suspense picture veteran Curtis Hanson (he directed The Bedroom Window and Bad Influence and wrote The Silent Partner) disguises the contrivances with energy and admirable performances, and the audience squeals and cheers on cue. [13 Jan 1992]

There's a continuing delicacy to [Singer's] direction that gives the audience room to breathe and reason to linger. This may not be a grownup movie but -- unlike the Star Wars franchise or the Batman sequels -- it is a movie that grownups can watch minus the requisite bottle of Excedrin.

The brazenness of her actions and opacity of her emotions suggest a tragic heroine in the grand tradition – the novel is the basis for the Shostakovich opera of the same title – but the film lacks the propulsive drive to make her fate moving.

Hathaway may be in a royal rut, but the tiara seems to fit.

It’s high quality sweetness, as carefully prepped and prettily presented as any of the meals, cocktails and home decorating binges partaken of our quartet of love-locked converts to the way of the heart.

You'll laugh, though you might hate yourself in the morning.

Some of the later scenes capture the spirit of majestic sweetness of "Close Encouners of the Third Kind" and "E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial" period, but the elevated moments don't last. They're relentlessly undermined by the f-bombs, groin kicks, and anal-probing jokes.

What's singular is that it was funded by the current Thai royal family and directed by a royal prince, Chatrichalerm Yukol.

Like a lot of well-staged parties, though, the affair peaks shortly after the introductions, and then devolves into intrigues, fights and mayhem.

Yet, for all that's wrong here, one thing is wonderfully, blissfully right, and his name is Tom Hanks.

An amiable action-comedy, amiable enough that the laughs come in a steady drizzle if not a torrent, and that the action is something blissfully less than the usual full-out assault on our battered senses.

A little bit like a barroom brawl: noisy, senseless, silly but somehow watchable.

A typical mixture of the artful and the repellent.

There is one thing you can say for the new horror film Phantasm (at the York): it certainly has its moment. [5 May 1979]

The director veers off course and heads straight for mediocrity. It's a disappointing ride.

An overdose of sympathy makes for a wispy picture, likeable certainly but lacking in crispness and clarity.

Even if the effect of watching two mega-screen icons banter back and forth for an hour and change doesn’t add up to much, Clooney and Roberts still have a sort of sparkle between them. It is the exact sort of wholly inoffensive, if bland, charisma that’s perfect for low-key, weekend watching (made even better in your pyjamas and on your couch).

The Dark Tower is King’s ultimate roller coaster – twisting and stomach-clenching and terrifying but, above all, fun. If only this version was as thrilling a ride.

Galifianakis grounds the film with a guileless sensitivity and bursts of ingenuity beneath his character’s buffoonish nature. Wiig and Wilson struggle at times with the offbeat tone, but the stacked supporting cast pick up the slack. Kate McKinnon shines as Galifianakis’s dead-eyed fiancée with all the personality of fresh roadkill, and Jason Sudeikis’s pencil-moustached hitman and Leslie Jones’s FBI agent steal their scenes.

Fortunately, Midwinter Break stars two seasoned actors who are not even close to the winter of their careers. Both bring grace and gravitas to their characters, conveying their personal crises with humanity.

Cotton Club lacks the resonance of The Godfather; it's similar stylistically, but everything is coarsened, caricatured. What Coppola has achieved, however, is what Sergio Leone was after in Once Upon a Time in America when he tried to celebrate America by recycling the cliches of its gangster films. [14 Dec 1984]