Elegy . . . embraces the emotional messiness of a heart-wringing country song, but lacks a haunting refrain to get under your skin.

As it moves toward a climax that will require Santa to connect with his inner action hero, the film works better than it should without being as enjoyable as its predecessor, the brothers' much less ambitious Small Town Crime.

Working from a diligently researched screenplay by his late father, Jack Fincher, the director has made a high-style piece of cinematic nostalgia that's a constant pleasure to look at but only intermittently finds a heartbeat.

While the script bounces from the cops to the feds to the cons and back, it fails to take us to that Donnie Brasco sweet spot in which the psychological pressures of being In Too Deep threaten to crack our hero, whether somebody gets a shiv into him or not.

The Dark and the Wicked offers supremely atmospheric thrills that will hauntingly resonate with anyone who's ever been faced with a similar situation.

Once the outlandish premise is established, there's little to enjoy in the increasing body count, leading you to wish that Mr. Peterson had simply murdered his victims in their sleep. That at least would have made for a blessedly shorter movie.

Gripping, intense and often very moving, The Endless Trench pulls together details from some of the jaw-dropping accounts of these lifelong nightmares, recasting the hidden history of a so-called “mole” and of his endlessly suffering wife as a profoundly involving, superbly played story about love as protection from fear.

Of obvious interest to arthouse audiences in Cullen, Wright and Jensen's native Australia, this ambitious and stimulating glimpse into the dark abyss of creativity deserves widespread international exposure at festivals and via receptive theatrical settings.

The Killing of Two Lovers is a transfixing drama without a wasted word or a single inessential scene.

The film is a proudly over-the-top, entertaining musical comedy extravaganza.

Although Landon and co-screenwriter Michael Kennedy have latched onto a winning concept, pairing the body-swap conceit with serial killer thrills, they’ve freighted the film with so many trite life-lesson moments that the fun gradually drains from the narrative, like blood from a murder victim.

In Collective, Nanau's observational style of filmmaking reaches emotional depths.

Ultimately, Farewell Amor is a heartening meditation on the meaning of home not just for one African immigrant family, but for all of mankind.

Rescuing Jimmy (and possibly Lorna) from a possessive, abusive husband would have been plenty of drama for this hitherto quiet, sensitive picture. Instead we get a family full of leering thugs, whose depiction sometimes suggests they might have a cousin out in the barn who dresses in other people's flesh. The action doesn't get quite that extreme, but it's bad enough.

Kelly Oxford’s debut feature Pink Skies Ahead is the kind of coming-of-age comedy that is destined for cult status, if not full-on indie success.

Patient viewers will find much to enjoy in this parable-like story, which is billed as a heist film but is ultimately less concerned with thievery than with moral justice.

Heavy on oppressively humid atmosphere and light on originality, the film is a mostly forgettable genre exercise whose viewers won't miss much by watching at home.

If it leaves us more hopeful about those kids' mental health than about the gun debate, that's hardly surprising.

Heavy on oppressively humid atmosphere and light on originality, the film is a mostly forgettable genre exercise whose viewers won't miss much by watching at home.

Slipping into the flavorful Neapolitan accent of her early years, Loren creates a warm-blooded, grounded character, whose feistiness ebbs slowly as the ravages of age, ill health and painful memory take hold. It's a lovely performance, full of pathos, from an esteemed actress whose wealth of experience illuminates this touching human drama.

It's a fun conceit trapped in a broad and retrograde flick.

The director doesn't rely on cheap jump scares or trick editing. Instead, he builds and sustains suspense throughout the well-paced thriller with controlled camera movement, malevolent lighting, unsettling music and jagged, staticky sound.

There's contemporary currency in Lister-Jones' point that women, already marginalized, should refrain from victimizing one another. But the point becomes strained once the external adversary emerges and the protagonists — of which only one really counts — take down a very literal embodiment of the patriarchy as pure evil. This is less an issue with the blunt theme than its limp execution.

An urgent film, it's filled with chilling detail and propelled by clear-eyed compassion.

Pixie is a trigger-happy comedy road movie that relies more on boorish energy than wit or charm.

Smart and unsettling psychological thriller.

It’s a far cry from dreary or depressing, but it also doesn’t offer any easy way to enter its emotional territory. Viewers who have gone through the experience of taking care of an ailing parent or relative may identify more fully with the slow-moving story.

Quiet and carefully made but cryptic, it relies on the viewer to complete its metaphors.