Small-scale and stagy thriller about a standoff that results when ATF agents, tailing a Canadian gunrunner at the wheel of a stolen car, get thrown off the scent and pick up the wrong car, but still a hot car, occupied by three penny-ante criminals (Matt Dillon, Gary Sinise, William Fichtner) …

Anemic remake of an underrated adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel. What was, in 1969, a sort of neo-James Cain hard-boiled thriller is now, under the direction of George Armitage (Miami Blues, Grosse Pointe Blank), a post-Tarantino, post-Get Shorty smarty-pants romp. And there is nothing to replace the sexual sparks …

Director Brent Baum's documentary covers an expedition to find the final resting place of Noah's Ark. Narrated by Gary Sinise.

Science-fiction thriller that takes a good long while to declare itself as such. A grieving mother, Julianne Moore, acting as if this were no less serious a business than The Hours or Far from Heaven, continues to make daily visits to her nine-year-old son's bedroom -- his dresser, his Mets …

Robert Benton's adaptation of a Philip Roth novel feels incontrovertibly bookish: the Big Themes (American race relations, moral hypocrisy, political correctness), the vast historical canvas (Vietnam, World War II), the contextual co-ordinates from current affairs (Viagra, Clinton-Lewinsky), the academic setting (mythical Athena College in rural Massachusetts), the self-analytical literary allusions …

An identity question is posed. (Is Spencer John Olham a weapons scientist or is he an alien replicant with a bomb for a heart?) A chase ensues. And continues for the duration. Frenetic direction by Gary Fleder, in a dark blue fog. With Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe, Vincent D'Onofrio, Mekhi …

Brusquely, bluntly, brutally "sensitive" film about a boy awakening to the existence of Real Monsters. A road-repair crew has put up "Danger" signs in front of the house; a pack of snarling dogs patrols the back; but mainly there's the gimp-legged neighbor nicknamed "the Zombie," who turns out to be …

Brian De Palma in command of Mission Control -- and it is not a happy sight to see this alumnus of the New Hollywood circa 1969-75, this ape of Welles and Hitchcock, this former pet of Pauline Kael, hurl himself headlong into the maelstrom of special effects. The image of …

Faithful, credulous, overtrusting account of the dated Steinbeck tearjerker, with John Malkovich (oh dear God, no! no!!) as simple-minded, heavy-petting Lennie, and Gary Sinise as selfless George, his brother's keeper. Sinise, who also directed, although in a soupier style, delivers a Depression-lean performance. But Malkovich, sporting a knitted-browed, fish-lipped expression …

Full-throttle kidnapping thriller, with sufficiently neck-wrenching zigs and zags. The pivotal zig (or zag) is the underdiscussed decision to turn the two-million-dollar ransom into a two-million-dollar reward: a tempting carrot for the criminal turncoat. Mel Gibson, perhaps setting his sights on the Best Actor Oscar after salting away the Best …

Caper thriller about a hapless ex-convict who passes himself off as his knifed cellmate to his cellmate's voluptuous pen pal, and in the result gets caught up in a Christmas Eve casino heist. It offers the somewhat unnatural and unsettling spectacle of an old dog trying to learn new tricks. …

A three-unities drama (unity of time, place, action) about a political assassination and its immediate aftermath in a sealed-off Atlantic City casino. Brian De Palma, a director who believes his viewers should be able to see his direction, gives us here a great deal to look at, beginning at the …