A falsely modest title, or falsely lightweight, for a pious parable about a contrite murderer in quest of atonement: cozying up to his victim's sister after twenty-three years in confinement, carrying her groceries, presenting her a rose, keeping his identity to himself. Billy Bob Thornton plays the slow-witted, humor-impaired protagonist …
A five-week countdown to Christmas Eve, plenty of time and the proper occasion to show how love makes the world go round, or anyhow makes Jolly Old England go round. The writing and directing debut of Richard Curtis, writer only on Four Weddings and a Funeral (he herein reminds us …
A five-week countdown to Christmas Eve, plenty of time and the proper occasion to show how love makes the world go round, or anyhow makes Jolly Old England go round. The writing and directing debut of Richard Curtis, writer only on Four Weddings and a Funeral (he herein reminds us …
The first Coen brothers film to disappoint. That's not to say it's not good, certainly not to say it's not even as good as their first, Blood Simple, when there could be no expectations and so no disappointment. The brothers have not suddenly lost their touch. They do for Billy …
Swiss-born filmmaker Marc Forster focuses on the middle man (Billy Bob Thornton) in three generations of Georgia corrections officers. The film starts right out throwing haymakers -- first-thing-in-the-morning vomit, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am sodomy, good-ole-boy bigotry, Death Row, the Last Walk, more vomit, a suicide, and a hit-and-run fatality -- before it settles …
Low-budget crime drama with higher-than-usual character interest. Most of that interest centers around a small-town Arkansas sheriff (Bill Paxton) who happens to police the suspected destination of three murderous fugitives from Los Angeles, a dapper and cool-headed black, a scruffy, ponytailed, psychopathic white, and the latter's coke-addicted, café-au-lait girlfriend. The …
The film that dares to ask: will you buy Sandra Bullock as a borderline, ball-busting political strategist? To bring down your asking price, the film takes her south of the border, where everything is portrayed as cheaper: the cynicism, the political strategizing, the despair, and even the redemption. At least …
The best-selling roman à clef by "Anonymous," a/k/a journalist Joe Klein, on Bill Clinton's drive to the Presidency, is short on imagination: just take the reality and tweak it a little. Clinton becomes "Stanton," George Stephanopoulos becomes black, and so forth. And the further the story ventures from established fact …
The ace air-traffic controller of the Newark-JFK-LaGuardia triangle goes into a tailspin after the arrival of the "interesting" new guy from Arizona, half-Indian and half-cowboy -- not to mention the new guy's very young wife, a full-lipped, full-bosomed, tattooed lush. Some well-turned gags, and some pointed scrutiny of masculine rivalry, …
Three men on the trail of a fox in the snow come upon a crashed plane with a dead pilot and a duffel of $4.4 million in cash: "It's the American Dream in a gym bag." The cracks-in-the-ice sequence of events is involving enough on the what-happens-next level. And it …
Billy Bob Thornton's Karl -- a borderline moron released from a mental institution twenty-five years after murdering his mother and her lover -- is a striking portrait, difficult to recognize as the same man who, for instance, was once the bullying cardsharp faced down by an unarmed Wyatt Earp in …
An oddity among oddities, a G-rated Disney film, in nice bright color, directed by David Lynch (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, etc.). But notwithstanding its Midwestern corn and its heartland-on-the-sleeve, it turns out to have its fair share of Lynchian crotchets as well. This cuts both ways. The movie …
Oliver Stone makes a stomach-lurching return to his worst Natural Born Killers style. Provided, that is, "style" can describe an indiscriminate hodgepodge of manic mannerisms from music videos, half-minute commercial spots (soft drinks, jeans), and "reality"-based TV shows (NYPD Blue, ER, et al.). Nowhere in his repertoire of cinematic hiccups, …
It seems likely that at some point, most folks probably entertain a fond fantasy of pulling up stakes and heading off into a new life full of adventure, excitement, and maybe even danger. Bored TV newswoman Kim Baker (Tina Fey, successfully and rapidly alternating between aggressively smart and emotionally vulnerable) …