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Rarely has the question "What the hell?" been more appropriate. An uneven amalgamation of the brilliant and the preposterous, Constantine left me by turns intrigued, confused, and wary. The recipe calls for some ingredients that are compelling, o...

"What we have here is… failure to communicate." In the history of motion pictures, there are a few - but only a few - better-known quotes. Even people who have never heard of Cool Hand Luke know that line (and can ape it with an imperfect Sto...

The Cooler, as icy a title as you're likely to find, is about the efforts of one man to find his luck (or, to be more precise, some form of luck other than that of the bad variety). Rarely has a more pathetic individual been captured and portrayed ...

Of the eight movies committed to celluloid by director Kenneth Branagh, five of them have been either adapted from one of Shakespeare's plays (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost) or have made significant use of the Bard's...

Dear Frankie, the feature debut of director Shona Auerbach, is a cinematic definition of mediocrity. Neither awful nor impressive, it features moments of genuine power and instances when it is cloying. The end result is an unremarkable, unmemorab...

Despite being directed by a Yank, Death at a Funeral has a very British flavour. In fact, at times it reminded me of nothing less than an extended episode of Fawlty Towers, minus the manic genius of John Cleese. The film begins slowly, with occas...

There's a lot going on in Deterrence, the directorial debut of journalist-turned-filmmaker Rod Lurie. Presidential election politics. An international crisis. The threat of nuclear war. All that, plus a blizzard that keeps the President trappe...

It seems that in a period detective story, it's a prerequisite for the main character to narrate the proceedings. In Devil in a Blue Dress, writer/director Carl Franklin apparently intended this conceit as a tribute to the Dashiell Hammett/Raymond...

The Devil Wears Prada is two films in one: a caustic, energetic satire of the fashion world and a cautionary melodrama. The first works; the second doesn't. Fortunately, the running time of the former doubles that of the latter, making The Devil ...