The wholly invented character of unattainable love interest Julia Cook (the real Kelly once referred to an enigmatic "Julia" in a letter) is the film's weakest link and smacks of a desperate attempt to shoehorn a pretty woman into a story about grubby men with tangled beards.

What begins as a sorry exercise in cynical seduction becomes a case of amour fou.

Shot in the warm sepia tones of bittersweet memories, this whimsical, unpretentious shaggy war story is the sort of film that looks like a small gem when you accidentally stumble across it on TV or at the video store. But it feels a little unsatisfying when its small virtues are stretched to cover a big screen.

The lame gags keep on coming and the mystery is both blindingly obvious and needlessly complicated.

For once, Carrey is more than merely tolerable. He's actually good, and the film that ebbs and flows around him is something you won't soon forget.

This multiple-twist thriller gets off to a fine, creepy start but eventually becomes too preposterous for its own good.

A buzzed-up gloss on the original, it's entertaining -- if fundamentally shallow.

John Carlos Frey's tough social drama has a slightly sensationalistic edge, but the disturbing fact is that all too much of his worthy film hews closely to the real-life experiences of undocumented immigrant workers.

The film's uniformly excellent performances are a delight, and fans of Irish actor Farrell (whose pitch-perfect American accent has served him well in Hollywood) can hear both his natural inflections and his singing voice.

It's just plain exhausting to watch the admirably game cast members running around like headless chickens in chic period clothes, surrendering their dignity to the task of navigating the plot's frenetic contrivances.

At just under 80 minutes, Gluck's film would make a perfect double bill with "Trembling Before G-d," Sandi Simcha DuBowski's acclaimed documentary about gay Orthodox Jews who, like Gluck, have found themselves caught between their love for their religious heritage and all the secular possibilities they could no longer ignore.

There's also very little dialogue, but what there is is often very funny, and Ceylan is a master of the dead-pan visual gags that reveal volumes about his character.

Continuity errors are as numerous as product placements and though shot on location, the movie captures none of London's local color.

The movie's "shock" payoff still feels like a cheap trick.

David Mamet's political thriller about the disappearance of the president's daughter is an unsatisfying slipknot of a film -- it looks tight and elaborate, but give it a tug and it goes flat.

If Israel needs a Mike Leigh to capture the angst of its silently suffering working class, it could do far worse than Nir Bergman.

Disco gets its due in this lightweight but entertaining look at the underground dance culture that flourished in New York City throughout the 1970s.

Makes you wish consumer automobiles were built to NASCAR safety standards.

Terminal illness, depression, suicide and one very angry young man: If there's such a thing as a kitchen-sink comedy, writer-director Lone Scherfig's sad but often very funny film is it.

There's no denying the freak-show appeal and you don't see frontal nudity like this on TV, but otherwise it's all as contrived and artificial as "Survivor."

Stiller's performance throws the whole enterprise out of whack -- he's a grotesque mass of tics, twitches and swaggering macho shoulder action.

The supporting cast is a riot of stock exotic characters, verging on the offensively stereotypical.

Its brightly colored surfaces and chirpy, picaresque tone notwithstanding, filmmaker Ra'anan Alexandrowciz's first feature is a scathing condemnation of the rampant venality he perceives as having gripped his country.

This is a rare road picture that leaves us knowing less about our traveling companions than we did when the journey started; Dahan and screenwriter Agnes Fustier-Dahan reduce their characters to pasteboard symbols, colored by unexplained quirks.

An intriguing mix of the familiar and the alien. DaFoe's distinctly American speech patterns are a little jarring amid a tangle of British inflections (French actor Cassel's accent is justified within the story), but it doesn't spoil the film's overall effect.

Even if you're feeling a little numbed by the spate of films dealing with 9/11, make an exception for this important documentary.

Forgoing any voice-over commentary, these now-familiar images regain their original power to shock with the sheer enormity of the event.

The film's biggest flaw is its excessive running time: The jokes start wearing thin after the first hour and, by the time the credits finally roll, it's become the kind of straightforward gorefest it started out ridiculing.