ReelViews for R movies

Helicopters thunder through the air over Los Angeles, raining malathion on the city in an attempt to end the dreaded Medfly invasion. Below, in each house and apartment, an individual drama is being played out. As in any human settlement at...

It's so easy to go wrong with a film like this. So easy to tart it up with sentiment, to turn up the mawkishness to an "11." For an example of how badly wrong this sort of thing can go, just think Patch Adams, where the manipulation never stopped c...

Although Shortcomings features as its central character an intolerable lout and the storyline is episodic, the directorial debut of actor/writer Randall Park shines in its sly observances about Asian American cultural idiosyncrasies and its charac...

Despite being sold and marketed as a thriller, the most interesting aspects of Shot Caller are the dramatic ones. Beneath all the machismo and traditional crime movie trappings, writer/director Ric Roman Waugh has something to say about the d...

Spoiler Alert: Although every effort has been made to limit the revelations in this review, it's difficult to provide a coherent discussion of Shutter Island without giving away something, so readers are hereby placed on alert. If you're familiar...

I can understand director Matthew Ross’ dilemma. In order to get Siberia made, he needed a “name” to become involved. That “name” was Keanu Reeves. Unfortunately, Reeves lacks the intensity necessary to play the main character, Lucas...

Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve embraces a bleak worldview, or at least that's what his filmography would lead audiences to believe. His celebrated movies, which include Incendies, Prisoners, and now Sicario (and will soon add the long-gestat...

Sicario: Day of the Soldado joins Deadpool 2 and Incredibles 2 as summer 2018 sequels that, despite not being on quite the same levels as their predecessors, provide reasons to make trips to theaters. Although not a direct continuation of the ...

There's something delightfully old-fashioned about Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects. It's the kind of thriller that Alfred Hitchcock might make if he was still alive and active today. It never seeks to do too much with the premise nor does it go ov...

Sideways is from Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt), whose films simultaneously satirize and observe life in America. Unlike David Lynch, who uses saws and butcher knives to dissect the American dream, Payne prefers a scalpel. Lynch often ri...