suspense/thriller

A Beautiful Mind (again) (review)

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So whaddaya know? Ron Howard and Russell Crowe rode the short bus all to the way to the Oscars by playing the ‘we made a sensitive film about the mentally ill’ card. Which is complete crap, of course. *A Beautiful Mind* is pure made-for-Hollywood pap about the mentally ill in which schizophrenia is treated by Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman the way doctors used to treat it in the bad old days before we (some of us, anyway) were enlightened about diseases of the brain: Hey, snap out of it! Get over it! It’s all in your head!

The Recruit movie review: stating the obvious

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Welcome to the Hollywood Action Movie, post September 11, wherein the hero is a jaded rogue with a videogame-honed trigger finger and his own conspiracy-theory Web site, and the villain is a jaded rogue driven mad by a lack of appreciation for a lifetime devoted to public service.

One Hour Photo (review)

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The cleanest, neatest discount store you’ve ever seen appears in Mark Romanek’s *One Hour Photo,* a clean, neat, all-corners-squared psychological thriller whose quiet precision is the most unnerving thing about it.

Road to Perdition movie review: pulp fiction

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There’s not a thing that isn’t hauntingly, quietly electrifying about this, the first truly grown-up comic book movie. Fans of the medium have known for years that the form had no trouble being Important, but the film industry (though perhaps not all filmmakers themselves) has stubbornly insisted on treating comic adaptations as juvenile.

Frailty (review)

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It sends a shiver up my spine just thinking about the movie now, even as I gaze out the window onto a gorgeous, happy, sunshiny day. It’ll be great when this one finally comes out on DVD, cuz then I’ll be able to curl up on the couch in the middle of the night wrapped in an old afghan for protection and give myself the wild heebie-jeebies watching it.

A Beautiful Mind (review)

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Toss a coin: Which do you prefer: A Heartwarming(TM) tale of one man’s triumph over mental illness? Or one director’s biting off more than he can chew and falling rather flat on his face? Or one more mostly terrific performance from Crowe? No need to look for a three-sided coin — you get all three in A Beautiful Mind.

Ocean’s Eleven movie review: it’s so money, baby

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Are you up for a little larceny that may be dangerous but is too much fun to pass up? Are you up for a smart dumb movie, the kind of delicious popcorn flick you get when some of the most talented and most watchable people in the biz let their hair down? Cuz this ain’t a movie that’s been fortified with vitamins and minerals or morals or anything good for you — this is pure cinematic junk food of the highest, tastiest order.

Behind Enemy Lines movie review: saving Owen Wilson

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Oh my god, is Owen Wilson gonna be a huge star or what? This weekend, millions of people who have never seen Bottle Rocket, have never heard of Wes Anderson, and have no idea that Wilson is a screenwriter of no small talent will be cheering on an Owen Wilson who channels the spirit of Steve McQueen while kicking some collective Bosnian ass and being all that he can be. Cuz Bruce Willis is gettin’ too old for this shit, I guess.