reviews

Legendary British director Mike Hodges (Croupier) and screenwriter Trevor Preston strip the mobster film down to its bare essentials, and the result is stark and relentless. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but daring filmgoers will find a shattering exploration of the psychological assault of crime on the criminal. Clive Owen (Beyond Borders) finds … more…

Since the fall of the Taliban, Islamic fundamentalism has “reasserted itself in a sinister way,” according to Canadian journalist Sally Armstrong, and in this powerful, angry film she documents precisely how little has changed for women in that ravaged country. Through the eyes of four Afghani women — including Dr. Sima Simar, who was, for … more…

Who decided Josh Hartnett could act? Where do they come from, these bland, boring, untalented pretty boys? Is there a factory somewhere in South America that extrudes them in flesh-colored silicone? How can we stop this?

Now, I’m the first film fan to profess a disdain for foreign films revisited by American filmmakers — there’s usually little point in doing so rather than giving those foreign films a wider domestic release, beyond the sad fact that most mainstream American moviegoers simply don’t want to read subtitles. But damn if *Criminal* doesn’t actually improve upon *The Nine Queens,* the Argentine film upon which it is very closely based.

I knew the sketchiest outline of what *Open Water* was about before I went into it: A young couple goes scuba diving in the middle of the ocean and get left behind when the boat heads back to shore. And the whole movie is just them stranded out there. How scary could it be, anyway, a movie about people floating around in water? Sure, there’ll be sharks, and that’ll be good for about ten minutes of boo!s… and then what? Yeah, the movie’s only 79 minutes, but still… This can’t possibly work, can it?

You wouldn’t think there’d be much left to say about cinematic serial killers and the cops they love to taunt, so it’s bonus points to *Suspect Zero* for even attempting to find something new in this, pardon the pun, done-to-death genre.

I call bullshit on this movie. Bullshit for being a geeky tease. Bullshit for being bad in that way that’s super boring, for not even having the common decency to be bad in that way that’s super cheesy. You can’t even have fun making fun of this movie, it’s so not even trying. It barely even bothers to show up.