Using Coward’s basic setup as no more than a springboard, the trio of script collaborators ill-advisedly substitute their merely serviceable dialogue for his sparkling exchanges and displace his urbane wit in favor of broad physical humor.

The result is a poignant drama pervaded by a sense of loneliness, with Frances McDormand in a bravura performance.

As a personality-rich study of conflicted loyalties, the fact-based drama “Judas and the Black Messiah” is a compelling piece of moviemaking.

Rather than feel-good entertainment, accordingly, this is a film of authentic emotions, humane values and serious intent.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and screenwriter Brad Ingelsby treat tragic events in a spare, matter-of-fact manner that magnifies their impact on viewers. This is matched by restrained performances from the gifted cast.

In the brooding crime drama, writer-director John Lee Hancock sets out to explore moral ambiguity in the context of police work. The result, however, ultimately feels more muddled than finely balanced.

There’s a sketchy feel to director and co-writer Robert Lorenz’s action drama and it ultimately fails to make much of an impression.

The tale of Sandra’s aspirations also becomes one of infectious community spirit as the proceedings take on the tone of an old-fashioned barn raising.

A steady focus on the believable characters who populate it elevates director Ric Roman Waugh’s engaging film above the status of a disaster movie.

It’s disappointing to find that Docter’s latest project, a blend of drama and comedy, while often funny, fails to make an impact similar to those of Toy Story, Up, or Inside Out.

The ethnic, sectional and economic tensions of the Reconstruction era are explored in the epic adventure “News of the World”.

There’s more emotional conflict than straight-out sorrow in Rosenberg’s script—but its message that happiness is to be found by pursuing fulfillment in the present may seem simplistic and unbalanced.

It’s effectively undercut by the fact that neither of its lead characters is a believable figure.

Though it plays intelligently with moral twists and turns, The Last Vermeer has a reliable ethical compass in Piller.

In the absence of any effort at character development or any realistic restraint on the mayhem that results, what we’re left with is a bloody killing spree meant to justify retaliation in kind.

Pity the poor contemporary artist who just doesn’t know what to do about religion.

The gruesome bloodletting that marks such franchises as “Friday the 13th” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is all-too-faithfully reproduced.

A morally dicey affair in which characters’ good and evil instincts are intertwined in a way that can only be untangled through subtle ethical assessment.

Between the relish with which Rock approaches his task and Spencer’s commanding presence, things get off to a rollicking start.

If the monster movie is only reasonably effective in frightening its audience, it is at least refreshingly free of objectionable material, including gore.