A Most Wanted Man movie review: intelligence afterscape
A smart, classy, slow-burn thriller made up of the stuff of authentic spy work and plenty of bitter irony about modern geopolitics.
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Nightcrawler movie review: how news gets broken
Noirish 1950s cynicism meets nasty 1970s Corman-esque exploitation in a thriller that is uncomfortable, unpleasant, unforgiving, and pretty darn brilliant.
Le Jour Se Lève (Daybreak) movie review: man on the edge
Serious film fans will appreciate the 4K restoration of this 1939 French melodrama, which has been all but unseen for 75 years.
The Judge movie review: you can go home again
Avoids feeling as supremely calculated as it is, perhaps because Robert Downey Jr.’s snark and Robert Duvall’s crusty pragmatism vaccinate against it.
Drive Hard movie review: end of the road
A deeply terrible would-be action comedy that looks, sounds, and feels like an 80s cheap and cheesy made-for-cable movie.
Gone Girl movie review: proof of wife
Ruins itself as even high-toned cinematic junk food when its justifiable cynicism morphs into something manipulative and dangerously disingenuous.
A Walk Among the Tombstones movie review: only mostly dead
Liam Neeson’s good performance only just elevates the general seen-it-before-ness, including a risible appropriation of women’s pain for men’s redemption.
The Equalizer movie review: recycled junk
Yet another artifact of the long stagnation of Hollywood, which has been remaking the same movies over and over and over again for the past 30 years.
Life of Crime movie review: minor misdemeanor
Low-key black comedy and sporadic horror lazily pop up among the crime drama, but never enough of either to score many zings.
Lucy movie review: head case
In this pile of adolescent heavy-metal-deep pseudo-sci-fi philosophy, the meaning of humanity depends on how “cool” something looks onscreen.
