rogerebert.com :: Reviews

Lasse Hallstrom's "Dear John" tells the heartbreaking story of two lovely young people who fail to find happiness together because they're trapped in an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Their romance leads to bittersweet loss that's so softened by the sweet characters that it feels like triumph. If a Sparks story ended in happiness, the characters might be disappointed. They seem to have their noble, resigned dialogue already written. Hemingway wrote one line that could substitute for the third act of every Sparks story: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Fish Tank (No MPAA rating)

A teen girl looking for trouble
just as it's looking for her

Andrea Arnold's piercing "Fish Tank" is the portrait of an angry, isolated 15-year-old girl who is hurtling toward a lifetime of misery. She is so hurt and lonely, we pity her. Her mother barely even sees her. The film takes place in a bleak British public housing estate, and in the streets and fields around it. There is no suggestion of a place this girl can go to find help, care or encouragement.

From Paris With Love (R)

From Travolta with CGI

Pauline Kael has already reviewed this movie in her book Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and it only took her the title. I could go through my usual vaudeville act about chase scenes and queasy-cams and Idiot Plots, but instead I'd like you to join me in the analysis of something that increasingly annoys me.

The Last Station (R)

It's great to be Leo Tolstoy, but
not so great to be Mrs. Tolstoy

Watching "The Last Station," I was reminded of the publisher Bennett Cerf's story about how he went to Europe to secure the rights to James Joyce's Ulysses.

"Nora, you have a brilliant husband," he told Joyce's wife. "You don't have to live with the bloody fool," she responded.

Edge of Darkness (R)

An only fairly good thriller, but
a first-rate Evil Corporation

Can we think of Mel Gibson simply as an action hero? A star whose personal baggage doesn't upstage his performances? I find that I can. He has made deplorable statements in recent years, which may be attributed to a kind of fanatic lunacy that can perhaps be diagnosed as a disease. The fact remains that in "Edge of Darkness" he remains a likable man with a natural screen presence.

The Chaser (No MPAA rating)

The South Koreans are expert
in grisly classic thrillers

"The Chaser" is an expert serial-killer film from South Korea and a poster child for what a well-made thriller looked like in the classic days. Its principal chase scene involves a foot race through the deserted narrow nighttime streets of Seoul. No exploding cars. The climax is the result of everything that has gone before. Not an extended fight scene. This is drama, and it is interesting. Action for its own sake is boring.

The Third Man

Shadows, a zither and a cuckoo clock

"The Third Man" plays a week-long engagement on a double bill with Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out" (1947) at the Music Box.

Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed's "The Third Man"? The score was performed on a zither by Anton Karas, who was playing in a Vienna beerhouse one night when Reed heard him. The sound is jaunty but without joy, like whistling in the dark. It sets the tone; the action begins like an undergraduate lark and then reveals vicious undertones.

35 Shots of Rum (No MPAA rating)

The story is told with the eyes

Here is a movie about four people who have known one another for a long time, and how their relationships shift in a way that was slow in the preparation. The film makes us care for them, and so our attention is held. I've seen films where superheroes shift alliances, and I only yawned. What matters is not the scope of a story, it's the depth.

Tooth Fairy (PG)

Want a Rock under your pillow?

In the pantheon of such legends as Santa Claus and the Bogeyman, the Tooth Fairy ranks down in the minor leagues, I'd say, with Jack Frost and the Easter Bunny. There is a scene in "Tooth Fairy" when the hero is screamed at by his girlfriend for even beginning to suggest to her 6-year-old that the tooth fairy doesn't exist, but surely this is a trauma a child can survive. Don't kids simply humor their parents to get the dollar?

Extraordinary Measures (PG) (1/20) »

Gigante (No MPAA rating) (1/20) »

The White Ribbon (R) (1/13) »

The Book of Eli (R) (1/13) »

A Town Called Panic (No MPAA rating) (1/13) »

The Lovely Bones (PG-13) (1/13) »

The Spy Next Door (PG) (1/13) »

Araya (No MPAA rating) (1/13) »

Youth in Revolt (R) (1/6) »

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (PG-13) (1/6) »

Leap Year (PG) (1/6) »

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (PG-13) (1/6) »