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 […]

Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” will leave a myriad of lasting impressions on different people for different reasons, but universally, the film will prove to the masses that ballet is most definitely not boring. Beautiful, thrilling, breathtaking — yes, I’m referring to both the art form and the film. “Black Swan” echoes everything there is to […]

Films with a tight premise tend to be reliable; so is the combination of director Tony Scott and Denzel Washington. The two have never struck gold, but they’ve produced solid, dependable box-office results and audience approval. “Unstoppable” has and will continue to achieve both. 90 minutes of entertainment can certainly be as good as gold […]

The eternal question of “what happens after we die?” is about as enigmatic as the kind of film Clint Eastwood’s latest, “Hereafter,” tries to be. Supernatural? Thriller? Relationship drama? The film will likely defy most audience expectations, so to be helpful, the answer is all of the above, but mostly “c.) relationship drama,” final answer. Eastwood […]

Ben Affleck’s second feature film as a director — if nothing else — proves he’s no fluke. In all the ways his sincere and revealing debut “Gone Baby Gone” succeeds, so does “The Town.” Both are Boston-based crime dramas that are both touchingly dramatic at times yet gripping at others. More impressive with his work […]

Most “one last job” movies are high-energy action flicks or thrillers driven by a veteran actor playing a character with a troubling back story, but Anton Corbijn’s “The American” operates as a character-driven mood piece, a precise and quiet visual portrayal of a man trying to quit his dangerous profession who is constantly haunted and […]

“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 […]

The giant gray cloud that hovers over the setting for almost the entirety of Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” is like the film’s suspense. The truly excellent mysteries in cinema are drawn out, almost at times torturous, hanging questions over our heads like — giant gray clouds. I wouldn’t say “The Ghost Writer” deserves comparison […]

Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon, you say? So another Bourne movie? Although those names combined with the trailer combined with Damon’s character Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller going rogue combined with mention of a code name person/project that Damon’s character wants answers about might indiscreetly imply the fast-paced action of renegade assassin Jason Bourne, “Green […]

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 […]