Jay Carr

Richard Attenborough's Chaplin is little more than an illustrated crash course on Charlie Chaplin. But, while superficial, it at least avoids disgrace. [08 Jan 1993, p.25]

While Harrison Ford brings all you could hope for to the role of Clancy's hero, CIA analyst Jack Ryan, Patriot Games is a pretty routine, generic and on the whole pedestrian film. Considering the talent and obvious care taken, it's surprisingly flavorless. [5 June 1992, p.25]

It starts with a flyboy roasting franks in the exhaust of a combat jet and never lets up, giddily puncturing all those wartime flying hero movies and throwing in a heap of movie parodies besides. Either way, the pacing is jetstreamed and the level of inventiveness is sky-high. [31 July 1991, p.25]

The 'Burbs begins promisingly, as if Joe Dante is going to yank a Steven Spielberg film into Blue Velvet depths. Once the premise is laid down, however, the film deflates and empties with alarming speed. [17 Feb 1989, p.88]

Soapdish should have been a laugher. But this new spoof of TV soaps isn't nearly as funny as the real thing. Soapdish holds only the merest sliver of entertainment. [31 May 1991, p.28]

Its pile-driving succession of set pieces comes at you with numbingly relentless efficiency, presumably in the hope that you won't notice or care how dumb it all is.

Films that achieve the dimension of seraphic embrace achieved by 'Innocence, as it explores a return to first love, are the rarest of the rare.

What saves it is that it's lighter than mousse and is animated by a handful of engaging performers.

Under Siege is dumb formula stuff, sensory jolts by the numbers. [09 Oct 1992, p.89]

American Pimp, if not quite a self-serving orgy of self-justification, can hardly be thought of as a searching look at the skin trade.

At times Mantegna's character seems little more than his dilemma, but Mamet's stylized dialogue crackles urgently and colorfully, each word landing with a weight you find only in good writing. The dislocation accelerates compellingly into ironic absurdity as Mamet lets his cop swing in the wind in this mordant parable of wrong things done for right reasons. There have been a lot of cop movies, but never one like Homicide. It has a way all its own of raising your consciousness by whacking you in the head. [18 Oct 1991, p.33]

Screenwriter John Hughes, making his directing debut, is at his best when he empathizes with the sensitivity in the ugly-duckling Ringwald and Hall characters. [04 May 1984]

Sensuous and rarefied, elevating its particulars into epiphanies, The Long Day Closes is as joyful as introversion gets. [9 July 1993, p.25]

'Trainspotting'' Lite.

Despite the heavy-handedness, isn't awful enough to be a hilarious howler. But neither is it good enough to become the tropical noir it could have been.

An earnest but ultimately scattered effort to put Yippie radical Abbie Hoffman's best foot posthumously forward.

This is classic Disney in the traditional mold - cute, but also pushing into dark territory, fueled by elemental passions. [21 June 1996, p.47]

Frears makes every note count for a lot in this beautifully gauged microcosm of big emotions expressed in small gestures.

A powerful and surehandedly crafted depth charge of a movie.

In short, the film isn't afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve and bring conviction to its focus on feelings. It's written with enough dexterity and wit to make you buy into it. [29 Jan 1999, p.C4]

Lots of sex, but little joy.

Amusing Made doesn't quite measure up to expectations.

Even when it falls back excessively on coincidence and contrived set pieces, even when it gushes irretrievably over the top in its final act, Washington makes Training Day sizzle.

The result is a megabudget "House Party" -- amiable, colorful, filled with glamour and style. [01 Jul 1992]

Although Crazy People would have been snappy fun in the '30s, or really wacky in the hands of a Preston Sturges in the '40s, it's pretty flaccid and pedestrian in Tony Bill's hands, not crazy enough. Still, it's on to something with those parodies. [11 Apr 1990, p.43]

Less than memorable.

If you walk in with your expectations at a suitably low setting, you won't walk away disappointed.

The best film of 2001 was made in 1979. [10 Aug 2001, p.D1]