In addition to its unconvincing, cliché-ridden storyline, Alina takes itself too seriously.

An affectionate and sometimes vibrantly imaginative biographical sketch, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards could have used more shoes and fewer people.

Although chances are good that something called This Is Your Death is not going to be admirably restrained in the subtlety department, there was at least the hope that this grotesque thriller wouldn’t have kept pivoting uneasily between audacious social satire and mawkish moralizing.

Depicting the very long, violence-filled night that ensues after a group of young people trespass in a creepy, abandoned prison, Against the Night proves as generic as its title.

Infusing her portrayal with equal measures of steeliness, vulnerability, sexiness and sly humor, Dhavernas bares herself both physically and soulfully in a magnetic performance that anchors the film.

Della Valle’s screenplay features the sort of artificial-sounding, hard-boiled dialogue uttered by characters who know they’re in a movie, and it’s woefully thin on storytelling coherence. Still, Akinnuoye-Agbaje looks great, and suitably haunted, walking on deserted beaches clad in a trench coat, and his co-stars prove equally compelling.

Raw, intriguing and energetic despite its flaws, the film fades in dramatic power over its final stretch and doesn’t always do justice to the the potential richness of its subject, but until then, it makes for an authentic, distinctive and watchable blend of the tough and the tender.

Breathe is clearly aiming for the same heart-wrenching emotional heights as James Marsh’s Oscar-winning Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything. But this is very much a crude copy, its noble intentions hobbled by a trite script, flat characters and a relentlessly saccharine tone that eventually starts to grate.

It takes skill to successfully handle heavy issues with a light touch, but that's what German-born, Argentina-based writer-director Nele Wohlatz pulls off with her delightfully original documentary/fiction hybrid.

What the film doesn’t have is the visceral impact that would take it from a well-intentioned treatise to a searing work of art.

Built for action, like its title character, the movie packs a muscular, bloody punch, but mainly it’s a well-oiled diversion.

An excellent blend of musical behind-the-scenes, open-hearted interviews, and performance.

Side-stepping what could have been a cheap, morbid peek into the lives of two beautiful teenagers who were born joined at the hip, Indivisible strikes out on its own path, sounding an exhilarating note of freedom for its protags.

Where the final minutes of the movie suffer from clumsy storytelling, most of what precedes them sits well within the romantic finding-oneself comfort zone, and Solo, while not able to imbue her character with Amelie-like spark, helps keep things from getting treacly.

The main problem is that the directors often struggle to assign meaning to their images that helps advance either the narrative or illuminate the emotional state of their main character.

Brad's Status is good enough to make you wish it were even better: tighter, bolder, sharper. But it's a droll, affecting movie — and, in its exploration of a man's fantasies of success and fears of failure, his trudge through the weeds of pessimism toward optimism, a distinctly American one.

Never talking down to his audience, he rather pulls them up to an intellectual level where other filmmakers fear to go.

Just about everything about this film is winning and gratifying.

While the film continues almost throughout to generate great whoops of shocking laughter, it's the notes of genuine sorrow, compassion and contrition that resonate.

Intending to shed insight on the philosophies that led them to their victories Winning too often feels like an intertwined series of inspirational television newsmagazine segments.

Shot in 23 countries, the film has an amazing breadth and a relentless moral drive that will make it a reference point for this subject, whatever the audience response may be.

The resulting effort proves so exploitative that its end credits' dedication to the victims and first responders feels tawdry. 9/11 represents a cheapo disaster movie wrapping itself in the piety of one of the nation’s most tragic events.

The film abounds with pinpoint insights into its mildly rebellious heroine's hunger to shed the restraints of home and Catholic school and bust into an independent life, and does so with a wealth of keenly observed detail.

Diffuse and rambling, the documentary offers plenty of fascinating historical tidbits but lacks the breadth and depth to do justice to its complicated narrative.

The film ultimately becomes bogged down by its meandering dialogue, generic characterizations and such mild attempts at suspense as one of the quintet worrying about a brother in New York City.

A giant thud of a film that makes one doubt the fact that West ever directed a proper Hollywood movie.

An unlikely romantic comedy concerning a young parish priest struggling to discover the true scope of his religious calling, The Good Catholic doesn't so much challenge conventions as reinforce them.

David Harewood and Edwina Findley, the only trained actors in a compelling cast of non-pros, deliver harrowing performances as a self-styled healer and the desperate mother who seeks his help for her tormented son.