Depardieu and Cornillac's sibling rivalry, which segues between mostly verbal smackdowns and liquored-up bursts of merriment, is beautifully observed, as is the relationship between the detective and his devoted wife (the wonderful Marie Bunel). The thriller stuff, by comparison, is just a lot of perfunctory deadweight.

Amer could exist only as a movie, not as a novel or a pop song. If you give it a whirl, you won't simply get drunk on its immediacy; you may throw out plot and character altogether.

There's no pleasure in watching the repeated sexual exploitation of the eponymous heroine in Dan Ireland's adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's short story; that there's little purpose to this abuse, however, is absolutely unforgivable.

Strange Powers works best when inadvertently capturing the toll of living in the shadow of a genius. When it comes to examining the genius himself, it's woefully out of tune.

The second in a proposed self-reflective doc trilogy, director Doug Block's embarrassingly honest follow-up to "51 Birch Street" (2005) is a neurotic, occasionally poignant rumination on his teenage daughter doing just what the title says.

There's so much right with Gareth Edwards's low-budget alien invasion tale that you almost want to brush aside everything that's not up to snuff.

It probably would have helped if Walker (who credits two other codirectors) had chosen just one of those avenues for deeper study; her doc has a vertiginous way of feeling arty and ephemeral at one moment, humane and maybe too earthbound the next.

It's entertainment designed to resemble a good time without aspiring to provide one.

This can't be a faithful facsimile of the literary phenomenon currently turning soccer moms into Scandinoir crackheads. Nor can ethical journalist Mikael (Nyqvist), an uncoverer of conspiracies, actually be the dull, Windbreakered nonaction hero onscreen.

Only Leo, always a dependable supporting actor, turns her character into something resembling a three-dimensional person. Watching her tentatively reconnect with her maternal instincts is a welcome surprise. Everything else here just feels like another descent into mediocre Amerindie miserablism.

Writer-director Von Trotta, an icon of the New German Cinema, doesn't have the technical chops for the fireworks you desire, so she settles for wan earnestness.

The impression is less of calculated ineptitude than of seasoned professionals (director Tod Williams made The Door in the Floor) playing dumb, as a checklist of household items-frying pans, endlessly shutting doors, a pool cleaner with a mind of its own-test viewers' reflexes.

Whether anyone over the age of 16 will find the film's proud amateurism and choir-preaching personally enlightening, much less profound, is anyone's guess.

Indeed, you leave the film feeling like Wiseman has given you a glimpse of one of those ephemeral ports in a storm to which all of us retreat at times.

Even with the grungy aesthetics and earnest preaching, Inhale is really nothing but crass topical exploitation, milking this social issue for every salacious drop.

Inane dialogue, extraneous scenes and wooden performances make for an experience that's less edge-of-your-seat than one very long, amateur hour and a half.

For those of us with a love of actorly indulgence, though, the film is a treasure trove, filled with enough molten-gold performances to gild a thousand Oscars.

What was Clint thinking? (Or Martin Scorsese, when he made "Shutter Island," for that matter.)

Strikingly picturesque locations and a terrific ensemble cast help this tonally inconsistent adaptation of Posy Simmonds's comic series pass by with relative ease, though it leaves a very peculiar aftertaste.

This stilted but oddly compelling Milwaukee-based throwback to Me Decade cheapies pays homage to the entire spectrum of '70s exploitation cinema, from the mucky Super-8 to the copious nudity.

All ye searching for Primal Fear redux, abandon hope. The character-driven drama he (Curran) offers viewers instead is something far more complex, cracked and unique for an American movie boasting big-name stars: an unblinking glare into the abyss.

Even those that have acquired a taste for Green's rigorous, super-ascetic aesthetic may find this French drama about a starlet (Baldaque) to be almost as bare as it is spare.

Despite a schmaltzy original score and some clunky direction, the film's well-portrayed characters and spot-on depiction of the scene make this a pleasant enough romp.

A distinctly shameless and shoddily made family comedy.

While never uproarious, Punching the Clown exudes the clever, warped sincerity of its star, eschewing uppercuts for a series of playful jabs.

Pillion starts as it means to go on; aligning its oddly innocent nature with extreme, hardcore imagery, and managing to give screwball humour an emotional gravitas.

Japanese superstar-in-the-making Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s (Drive My Car) latest film is a touching ecological parable full of little feints and narrative red herrings. Just when you think it’s heading in one direction, it slips off elsewhere, like a fawn in the woods.

Langley has a tough time persuading people to care as much about Richard III as she does, and so does this film.