Movies with music written by Paul Haslinger

Vacancy is a nicely compact, tense thriller that loses a little of its punch as a result of a rushed, generic ending. For the most part, the English-language debut of Nimrod Atal (Kontroll) offers a strong sense of atmosphere and escalating suspen...

The Girl Next Door builds up enough good will during its successful first half that we're willing to forgive some of the strange and disappointing convolutions the plot takes us through during the final 45 minutes. There are two primary reasons wh...

I admire filmmakers who take chances and defy expectations. Admittedly, that sort of thing doesn't always work, and there are flaws aplenty in After.Life, but the criss-crossing between drama, thriller, and horror is nothing if not arresting. It ...

Takers is a standard-order heist flick that stays mostly true to its B-movie roots until the end, when director John Luessenhop attempts to inject a little seriousness (there's some slow-motion and even an operatic score) into an otherwise unpreten...

Ever since people saw him in a tuxedo in Croupier, Clive Owen was considered the likely successor to Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. It remains unclear whether the producers passed over Owen in favor of the lesser known Daniel Craig or whether (as s...

Vampire movies aren't what they used to be. Gone are the days when a cape, fangs, a cocked eyebrow, and a menacing glare were enough. By today's standards, those things are quaint. Underworld, from first time director Len Wiseman, is an example ...

Ride is a slickly-made thriller that takes place almost entirely within the confines of an automobile. Unlike Tom Hardy’s Locke, however, this isn’t a one-man show. In this case, there are three players and the interaction among them prov...

There's not much of a mystery about what Crank delivers. As promised, it's 85 minutes of action, with little in the way of encumbrances like dialogue and exposition, and only skeletal fragments of a narrative to keep things moving. For the most p...

Whether by coincidence or design, the three week period from August 20 through September 10 has been dominated over the last five years by Jason Statham. In 2004, there was Cellular. In 2005, there was Transporter 2. The 2006 entry was Crank, fo...

I suppose Blue Crush can be viewed as a "guilty pleasure", with an emphasis on the first word of that phrase over the second one. The movie, the latest directorial effort from John Stockwell (Crazy/Beautiful), is redeemed to one degree or another ...