Global pandemics make for captivating science-fiction fodder — especially when the infected turn into raging zombies — but let’s say it was a tad more realistic. Let’s say that H1N1 had been as bad as we were prepared for and people were dying left and right. “Contagion” imagines that scenario through the extensive research [...]

If humans can only access 20 percent of their brains normally and 100 percent while on NZT, the “Limitless” drug of choice, then I would say screenwriter Leslie Dixon and director Neil Burger probably access somewhere around 70 percent of their creative power with regards to bringing Alan Glynn’s novel to the big screen. All [...]

There are the grand emotional courtroom dramas that immerse you in the ethical dilemmas that stem from from the case itself, filled with quotable speeches from venerable actors; then there’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” starring Matthew McConaughey. Based on the Michael Connelly novel, the film plays more like a crime thriller set in the legal realm, [...]

Give Rodrigo Cortés credit: movie aside, few people could stand the thought of 90 minutes in a box with Ryan Reynolds. Not to jab at Reynolds’ talent, but most of his roles wear thin during the course of a movie and you can actually empathize with Paul Conroy. A Michigan- based truck driver, he’s on [...]

What a seemingly insurmountable task to adapt and execute the multiple story lines and brimming detail of Stieg Larsson’s novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Despite all the slicing and dicing (yet still a two-and-half-hour run time), credit belongs to this Swedish filmmaking team for still managing to replicate the novel’s extraordinary pacing.

There’s no way to watch “Following” and not conclude that Christopher Nolan would become something special. Someone who can weave that much complexity into a film with a cast of few and in the course of just 69 minutes clearly has a knack for the filmmaking thing. “Following” might not amount to a whole lot [...]

“True Romance” blossoms on a lot of levels, but it most distinctively bears the mark of an early Quentin Tarantino film. The scene dynamics and the way it plays beautifully in and out of turning points are all early signs of the would-be master at work. Released the year between “Resevoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” [...]

Mel Gibson returns to suitable form in “Edge of Darkness,” a revenged-fueled thriller by the producer and writer of “The Departed.” It’s not that anyone doubted Gibson’s prowess, especially in a role with motivation as clear as “you people killed my daughter and when I prove it I’m going to make you pay in ways [...]

As a fan of science fiction allegory, social experiment, “The Twilight Zone” and the thriller genre –no less all those elements combined — Richard Kelly and his film “The Box” should’ve at least won me over, but it doesn’t. It can’t even decide if it wants to remain completely mysterious or explicitly tell us what’s [...]

Anyone could market or even direct “The Conversation” as a mystery, but Francis Ford Coppola manages to reveal some of our human tendencies in his film just as well as he holds us in suspense. Voyeurism, like it or not, is a human characteristic. Modern day reality television simultaneously proves both this point alone and [...]

A thriller on the Trans-Siberian railway is not an everyday film premise and that is in part what makes “Transsiberian” interesting. It’s not typical in any way unless you count the connection between murder and trains. That, and its cast is quality without seeking out big- hitting names and its director, Brad Anderson (“The Machinist”) [...]

There’s exploiting the criminal justice system and then there’s Clyde Shelton’s (Gerard Butler) exploiting of the criminal justice system, which involves killing everyone connected to it. Right and wrong is hardly black and white in any good movie and in “Law Abiding Citizen” it’s hardly a hundred shades of gray. Shelton is a man who [...]

In the wake of World War II, Alfred Hitchcock brought audiences “Notorious,” a romantic thriller with political undertones. To audiences of the era, I’m sure it was slightly scandalous. Not only in its dealing with Germans living in Brazil post-WWII and handling uranium, but also with its co-stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman kissing on [...]

There comes a point in the repetitive nature of films where the phrase “run-of-the-mill” just won’t do. In the case of the remake of the train hijack/ransom heist thriller “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” the mill has been running so much that maybe the more adequate phrase should be the past tense “ran.” [...]

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a good cat-and-mouse thriller done old school, and that’s exactly what “Public Enemies” is. Merely trade in your usual summer crime movie full of thieves in ski masks wielding uzis for ones wearing suits and fedoras armed with tommy guns and suddenly you’re getting entertained Great Depression-style. “Public Enemies” [...]