The first English-language feature from Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu brings together disparate characters by the same matchmaking method of his Amores Perros: by car accident. Benicio Del Toro, a born-again ex-con, runs over the husband and two daughters of Naomi Watts, and the husband's heart is transplanted anonymously into …
First half of Steven Soderbergh’s four-and-a-half-hour worship service in honor of Che Guevara, conducted in Spanish with English subtitles, really two distinct movies. This first, in wide screen and in roomy frames, operates a time shuttle between vivid color re-enactments of the overthrow of Batista in the late Fifties and …
The free-standing second half of Steven Soderbergh’s worship service, in narrower screen than the first half, and in less vivid color and no black-and-white, unfolds a contrastingly chronological account of Guevara’s final year, 1966-67, his ill-fated attempt to do in Bolivia what he had done in Cuba. As in the …
Love can make you do stupid things. Like, say, move from Canada to Colombia to help your hobbled brother build a shack/shop on the beach while you give surf lessons, then start dating a pretty local who happens to be the niece of the most powerful guy in town, then …
Gimpy romance between the poor little rich girl who has faked her own kidnapping to get Daddy's attention and the car thief who makes off with the BMW in whose trunk she has locked herself. The self-conscious affectations of the stars -- the halting, tremulous line-readings of Benicio Del Toro, …
Rancidly cheesy psychological thriller whose title character is a philosophizing baseball nut (his motto: "Perfection and principles") fixated on the San Francisco Giants' new $40 million outfielder with a .310 lifetime average. But "psychological" is a very loose collar on this thriller; "ornamental" would be snugger. Director Tony Scott (Top …
A pre-credits clip of The Petrified Forest sets the time and the social milieu for a slow, morose, brooding gangster film, riddled with Catholic torment and subliterate philosophizing. Abel Ferrara convinces you of his seriousness, as much by dullness as by anything else; and the endless flashbacks tax patience with …
Grueling, grisly chase thriller with Benicio Del Toro as a Rambo-gone-bad -- a Kosovo vet and now a run-amuck "killing machine" -- and Tommy Lee Jones as the Richard Crenna who trained him to kill (but never killed anyone himself) and who alone can unplug the machine. The pursuit encompasses …
“My headache is coming,” Jimmy P. (Benicio del Toro) announces, as sure as a lycanthrope foretells a full moon. This time del Toro isn’t cast a wolfman and the reason behind the pending pain is a lot harder to diagnose in director Arnaud Desplechin’s fact-based, back-to-the-“snake pit” period account of …
A white guy in Detroit, 1954, is looking for a reliable black guy, preferably one fresh out of stir, to surrender three hours’ work in exchange for $5000. What’s the catch? It begins along the lines of The Desperate Hours, with two of the armed home invaders (Don Cheadle and …
Aid workers Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins just want to help. Specifically, they want to get a dead body out of a well in mid-’90s Eastern Europe. But first, they need some rope. Fernando León de Aranoa directs.
Slow and "heavy" Americanization of an egghead detective novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Like a lot of actors-turned-director, Sean Penn is disposed to dump an emotional load on his actors and watch them stagger around under it awhile. Most of them -- Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Clarkson, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave, …
Oliver Stone’s latest “just say yes” endeavor is reminiscent of his work on Scarface. The only shock here is that 30 years later, the brutal killing and graphic dismemberment is being performed in the name of blowing weed, not snorting coke. Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch star as a pair …
Usually, director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) knows how to stick the landing. Any nagging dissatisfactions are dispatched with elegance and aplomb by his directorial denoument. Not so, Sicario, his exploration of the brutal violence and moral complication surrounding the war on drugs. Critics looking to get a pull-quote on the poster …
As if in imitation of the ruthless Mexican drug cartel its heroes go after, director Stefano Sollima’s sequel decapitates, disembowels, and castrates Denis Villeneuve’s beautiful, tough, and sad 2015 original. Head: what had been a smart take on the difficulty of doing right even when you’re righteous — particularly when …