Over the last couple of reels the film shakes off its self-conscious inhibitions and displays some healthy unruliness, and just as we're warming to a group of characters whose indulgences have been not only culinary but emotional, it's all over.

Although the film’s dark humor and colorful, thriller aesthetics provide some juicy material at the beginning, its overindulgence in chatter, fornication and occasional gore feels too blatant to make Sono’s social commentary run anywhere but skin-deep.

Despite the affecting performances by the two leads, this overly muted drama fails to make much of an impact.

Without creating fully fleshed characters or truly involving conflict, the film aims instead to provoke howls of recognition and tears of gratitude by appealing to very basic notions of parent-child love.

This effort offers some mild amusement but lacks the anarchic wit to make it anything more than a slight diversion.

Unfocused, overly long documentary raises provocative questions.

Despite a neat narrative twist delivered during the end credits, Alien Abduction is ultimately a by-the-numbers enterprise that will please only the most undemanding audiences at midnight screenings.

Less time spent fetishizing his own image and more on building credible character dynamics and psychological complexity might have helped make this film the dramatic equal of its technical craftsmanship.

Formulaic and often hard to swallow, the picture offers little beyond the familiar pleasures of Duvall's old-coot mode.

Despite Meat Loaf’s hammily entertaining turn as the desperate owner of a musical theater summer camp, the film fails to live up to its obvious inspirations.

A fair-to-middling little date movie.

While the screenplay by De Paolis and Sarah Nerboso falters in its melodramatic plot elements, its incisive characterizations and well-drawn smaller moments provide some compensation.

Though its even-tempered account may be more thorough than print and TV coverage at the time, the doc doesn't offer anything dramatic enough to draw many eyeballs at this late date.

Writers and directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland have crafted a solid script... Holding the enterprise back, however, is a terribly restrained directorial approach and academic visual style that prevent the lubricious story from truly coming to life.

Has its entertaining moments and boasts pungent performances from such supporting players as Ron Perlman and John C. McGinley, but never quite succeeds in managing its uncomfortable tonal shift from dark comedy to true-crime thriller.

Recognizable human behavior is not this film’s forte -- which wouldn’t be a problem if something else would take its place but Punch never finds the right tone for the heterogeneous material, with sweetly melodramatic scenes alternating with high drama, some light action and farce.

Whether they’re filing ridiculous complaints about each other to the unflappable mayor (Michel Blanc), arguing over the proper presentation of ingredients or sharing a cafe table, Mirren and Puri bring an effortless command to their roles.

The drama and intensity that are [Haggis's] signatures are mostly missing from these vividly dramatized but uninvolving romantic crises, none of which are particularly believable.

With its splashy paintbox palette and jaunty pop soundtrack, All Cheerleaders Die just about hangs together as a cheerfully goofy romp.

Despite some evocative moments...the film is too elliptical and fragmented to have the desired impact. It ultimately leaves the viewer, much like its hero, in a state of dazed confusion.

While Murphy coasts along on charm, his material is just not sharp enough to generate big laughs.

There are some good ideas struggling to be heard, but they're drowned out by the contrivances, the gunfire and the screaming.

More notable for its small, incisive moments than as a moving depiction of the way that familial relationships are affected by life crises, the film makes only a minor impact.

Unfocussed editing and Mark Rivett's unimaginative score contribute to a lightweight feel that is best suited to TV viewing.

Ericson Core’s Point Break strips the silly fun and relatively straight-ahead narrative from the original for a humorless, if photogenic spin on extreme crime.

Good People follows a familiar thriller template without managing to be particularly compelling.

While one might agree or disagree with their theme, aesthetically Citizen Koch is feisty.

The screenplay... seems to generally lack a throughline or focus, coasting from party scenes full of drugs and alcohol to work-related drama but rarely managing to get inside the head of the self-destructive character the designer had become by the 1970s.