ReelViews for R movies

Precious (saddled with the unwieldy subtitle: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire) manages the task of being both heartbreaking and heart-warming, all without resorting to the kind of manipulation so often evident in dramas about underprivileged ki...

Predator is one of those tired franchises that Hollywood simply won’t give up on. Maybe a box office bonanza will justify Fox’s faith but this sixth entry in the series feels too much like a tired retread to be worth making a trip to a the...

Predators is Robert Rodriguez's attempt to re-invigorate (but not reboot) the Predator franchise, whose devaluation began with an ill-advised sequel, accelerated as a result of the poorly realized Alien vs. Predator, and bottomed out with the lifel...

Predestination is what is commonly referred to as a "mind-fuck" movie. A low-budget science fiction feature, Predestination has expectations of its audience related to attention span and concentration level. Whether or not the plot remains on solid...

Pretty Persuasion opens with more promise than it closes with. It doesn't take long for the cattily satirical tone to become monotonous as the characters refuse all attempts at development and the plot treads water into the shallows. The film tri...

A Price Above Rubies is writer/director Boaz Yakin's follow-up to his highly-regarded, tautly-paced 1994 picture, Fresh. Sadly, little of the energy and intelligence of the earlier film is evident in this, an overwrought melodrama populated ...

Brassed Off. Billy Elliot. The Full Monty. When it comes to feel-good movies with a social conscience, no one does it better than the U.K. With Pride, they've done it again. Specifically, second-time director Matthew Warchus and first-time screenwr...

The generic cop movie has become such a tedious bore that when something like The Departed comes along, it injects energy into a genre that, over time, has lost momentum to a dried-up wellspring of creativity. Even as recently as the '80s, when Di...

The Catholic community's outcry against Priest has already begun, and it will doubtlessly become more intense before it abates. One of the most disturbing elements of any organized protest of this sort is that most of those involved will not have ...

One of the most unfortunate aspects of a courtroom thriller is the tendency to degenerate into preposterous melodrama. It's as if the basic situation of having a person on trial for their life isn't inherently powerful enough. As a result, cheap...