An anomaly, maybe an antilogy: a Sylvester Stallone film for critics. Written and directed by James Mangold (of the low-budget independent Heavy), it is a Sidney Lumet-style expose of police misconduct, in which the action star sets out as a resigned sideline-sitter, an overweight wannabe cop, hampered with one bad …
Cultish, or would-be cultish, adaptation of a novel by the erstwhile science-fiction writer J.G. Ballard -- albeit a novel infinitely less science-fictional, though no less inert, than The Drowned World or The Drought. It plays out on screen as little more than a slice of soft-core (or semisoft-core) porn, right …
Sidney Lumet, as witness his Network, could never see much point in being humorous unless he could be lecturing you and hectoring you in the bargain. (Not too surprisingly, his climax here gives up all pretense of humor and settles down to strict lecture.) The topic this time out is …
Ice Cube, a Bay Area teacher, returns to his roots in South Africa, only to land in a rubbish pile of carjackers, racist thugs, dope peddlers. Elizabeth Hurley, the Estée Lauder girl, turns up as a crackhead stripper: "I like dahncing." Neither has much of a grasp of the job …
Formula disaster film, with only the tiniest ingredient of human interest and (like Independence Day, like Daylight) an overriding dash of canine interest. Because the agent of disaster is a volcano ("She's just clearing her throat. She hasn't even started to sing yet"), there is considerable delay before the big …
A pleasant outing in a Buick station wagon, comfortably seating five: Mom, Dad, Sis and her boyfriend, and the suspicious wife who, on the day after Thanksgiving, has discovered a cryptic note to her husband, quoting an Andrew Marvell love poem and signed "Sandy." What is the meaning of this? …
A pleasant outing in a Buick station wagon, comfortably seating five: Mom, Dad, Sis and her boyfriend, and the suspicious wife who, on the day after Thanksgiving, has discovered a cryptic note to her husband, quoting an Andrew Marvell love poem and signed "Sandy." What is the meaning of this? …
Not a title to mobilize the masses, although the proper name would seem to be widely and warmly regarded as audience-friendly: When Harry Met Sally, Dirty Harry, The Trouble with Harry, Harry and Tonto, Harry and Son, Harry and the Hendersons, etc., etc. One of Woody Allen's better efforts in …
Hard-to-top defamation of lawyers: the senior partner of Milton, Chadwich, Waters is Satan himself ("Law -- it's the new priesthood, baby!"), and his clients are culled exclusively from the vicious and the depraved. The only thing holding Al Pacino in check in this role is his limited time on screen. …
An IRA lad (Brad Pitt) is set up with room and board at the suburban New York address of an honest Irish cop (Harrison Ford) -- "safest place in the city" -- while he awaits a shipment of Stinger missiles to combat Brit helicopters back in Belfast. The ashen color …
Leather-jacketed Brit literally bumps into an old schoolmate (bike bumps into cab), but the boy once known as Karl is now a prim and proper young lady named Kim. The course of romance thereafter is right-mindedly, none too humorously, rather boringly instructional ("So you're telling me Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson …
Inside the Mafia, on the elbow of an FBI infiltrator. And all of a sudden Lefty from Mulberry Street won't go anywhere without Don the Jeweller. The factual basis adds little in the way of interest or excitement, although it seems to inspire a desire to instruct (mustaches are "against …
Jean-Claude van Damme tries out his third Hong Kong director, Tsui Hark, after John Woo (Hard Target) and Ringo Lam (Maximum Risk). He gets tirelessly hard work out of the man (and one outstanding shot, a closeup of van Damme's jiggling eyes as he is running at full tilt), but …
Aimless doodle to do with the tightening bond and shared adventures (nude bowling with hookers, etc.) between a suicidal voyeur and the terminally ill boyfriend of the voyeur's favorite target. There are lessons to be learned and surprises to be sprung, but without a whiff of belief. The jeans-ad color …
Provincial French couple get out of a rut and go off the rails after they meet The Queens of the Night, a cross-dressing nightclub team. A cheesily "provocative" premise given a boringly "serious" treatment. With Miou-Miou and Charles Berling; directed by Anne Fontaine.