Any meager pleasures that Lies We Tell offers are purely technical.

Easily the most ambitious film of the director's career, but also the most infuriating for all of the sociological and psychological points that it tries to make in ways that are too often unearned or poorly defended.

The often-very-funny picture entertains while affording its characters their share of no-laughing-matter concerns.

A pulpy and fun fight flick that is better in some respects than it needs to be, Retaliation may not do for Moussi what the original Kickboxer did for Van Damme, but it won't send fans home disappointed.

Somewhere in the murky depths of this modestly gripping thriller lurks a more interesting film about real-life monsters, the kind that prey on human minds not human flesh.

The Misguided has its amusing moments but ultimately seems as aimless as the figures at its center.

Montiel treats his story's happily unsung oddballs with sincere affection. He doesn't hold them up to ridicule, or insist that they snap out of their quirkiness and conform. But he doesn't quite know what to do with them.

The film evolves into an unconventional road movie that turns out to be quietly affecting.

Robert Mockler's Like Me, while hardly for every taste, rises above the pack in a few ways — ranging from its ambitious style to the out-of-whack humanity of its two lead performances.

The mishmash of styles smacks of a "let's throw in everything but the kitchen sink" approach that becomes increasingly tiresome the longer it goes on and feels more like a horror anthology than a cohesive story. Nonetheless, there's no denying that the film could well please hardcore genre aficionados for whom more is always better.

The Opera House is a feast for opera lovers and anyone interested in urban planning.

Like Seweryn, Konieczna is a performer with considerable experience on the Polish stage and she fulfils the same function in the film as Zofia does in the family — holding everything together with an admirably unfussy stoicism.

Interminable dull stretches blunt the impact of undeniably exciting action sequences, making the series finale unlikely to leave even fans wanting more.

Increasingly tense and benefiting from a well-thought-out script by Tony Gilroy, it finds a slim opening for heroics in a place where all parties are tainted.

Clearly weighted towards Gitai's own liberal political stance, but incorporating a range of other views too, West of the Jordan River is a dry and sometimes depressing film, but informative and humane too.

In a terrific performance that encompasses countless attitudinal, emotional and physical shifts, Joaquin Phoenix eases into the lead role with equal parts raw pain, ironic humor and eventual mellow acceptance.

Despite its technical gloss and effective performances, Den of Thieves never manage to feel other than hopelessly derivative.

Sluggish and somber, with nary a wink, chuckle or sigh of relief to mitigate the misery, the film is a slog. That's unfortunate, because the writer-directors have a strong visual sense, and, in Wood, a magnetic lead.

Unfortunately, settings alone don't make a movie, and this cliché-ridden effort feels indistinguishable from the countless similarly themed horror films that have preceded it.

The creativity doesn't match up to the ideals here, even if Abe & Phil does offer one of the better final scenes (a grace note, really) seen in recent indies.

A mishmash of action movie and buddy-cop clichés rendered in incompetent fashion, this wink-wink homage to 1991's Showdown in Little Tokyo makes its inspiration seem like a classic.

Veterans Englund and Shaye admirably give it their all, but their best efforts are not enough to elevate the subpar material directed in mechanical fashion by Zariwny.

It offers an eccentric but accessible look at American high-rise history.

Suspenseful and funny, occasionally poignant and often nearly unbelievable, it captures a certain sociological flavor while remaining universally accessible.

[Devor] displays a relentless curiosity in tandem with an evidently sympathetic eye to human foibles and peccadillos, yielding numerous fleeting insights without ever really aiming to find a grand overall conclusion.

The Banishment (Izgnanie) starts off like a thriller with a car roaring into the city and a clandestine surgery by a man to remove a bullet in his brother's arm. Then, ever so slowly, the movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose.

In the end, Kangaroo is the kind of advocacy film that's most likely to convince you if you already believe.

It's difficult to entirely resist the film's heartwarming portrait of decent people who genuinely care for each other and strive to do the right thing.