Denzel Washington walked an impressive tightrope: keeping us rooting for his character while continually disappointing us with his conduct. His co-star was very appealing, and John Goodman was a pleasure, as always. In the end, though, this was strictly a one-trick pony, and that trick wasn’t all that engaging.
The novel staged as a series of tableaux. At first I found it corny, like a Broadway musical sans music; but by the time I figured out, more or less, who was who, I had fallen into Joe Wright’s rhythm and had no more complaint. Keira Knightley was quite good, and lovely as usual, but […]
Jennifer Lawrence sizzled. Bradley Cooper burned. This film was at its most eloquent when neither spoke but looked into the other’s eyes. The plot points were goofily absurd, but that was just background for the onscreen chemistry between the two stars, who made you feel their longing – and their craziness. I felt a little […]
More interesting as history lesson than movie (assuming, of course, that the history was reliable). Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones were terrific, but they were the only ones with good lines and interesting personalities. The others were drawn from the Hollywood stockyard, and the scenes they played were devoid of subtlety. I felt I was back in […]
Pure hokum, along the lines of a Disney after-school special – Spin & Marty, anyone? – but an enjoyably inoffensive gloss on the surfer culture I now find myself living amid. There’s no acting worth mentioning, and the women are window dressing, but the shots of the ocean, and the surfing, are worth sticking around […]
The great Christopher Walken is enough to enjoy this murder-comedy, but there are plenty of other wonderful performances: Colin Farrell as the procrastinating screenwriter, Woody Harrelson as the dog-loving gangster kingpin, Tom Waits as…Tom Waits?, and Sam Rockwell as the lead psychopath. The setup is rather primitive – for a reason that only appears after […]
A very adult thriller from Hollywood – bravo, Ben Affleck! The danger was real and historical, yet there weren’t any conventional bad guys: the Iranians were shown to have full justification, in their minds if not ours, for their actions. The hostages were presented as unglamorous everyday people – in fact, their appearances uncannily matched […]
One could list the ten most improbable moments of the film, starting with Amy Adams throwing her potential law firm partnership in the garbage can, or Rigo Sanchez, sans warmup, throwing fastballs past Bo Gentry (and if the issue is the curve, why make Rigo a lefthander?), and you’d probably have trouble stopping at ten; […]
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