CinemaUS Reviews

The Michael Jordan of cinema, Adam Sandler is out to conquer yet another genre – and ideally the comic superstar, whose been smashing his trademark lowbrow comedies out of the park for years now (the one where he played his own female twin, the one where he romanced box-office poison Jennifer Aniston, the one where [...]

A high speed pursuit leads to a deadly shootout with a quartet of gang bangers, captured clearly on the police car’s video camera. Just another day in Los Angeles. Several weeks later we join police officers Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Pena) as they return to duty. Currently enrolled in college and taking filmmaking [...]

If Aussie director John Hillcoat had suddenly found himself charged with the task of doing a ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ reboot, one imagines it wouldn’t be at all that dissimilar to ”Lawless”, a southern fried actioner with as much machismo as it does moonshine. Hillcoat, known for directing dark, bleak period pieces (and ones that generally [...]

Written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki, ”Arbitrage” is a morality play veiled as a murder mystery. Richard Gere is the bad guy, a troubled hedge-fund manager named Robert Miller. With his million-dollar smile and designer suits, he’s gotten away with a lot – and may continue to doing so. He’s cheating on his wife (Susan [...]

Like a Karate Kid movie without The Crane, Walter Salles’ ”On the Road” would lose its footing – or should that be thumbs? – without it’s astutely-cast leads. As those wild literary heroes of Jack Kerouac’s classic beatnik novel, Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund and Kristen ‘Twilight’ Stewart burn rubber as Sal, Moriarty and Marylou, respectively, [...]

Buzzing with fast cash exchange and “conversations that never happened,” “The Ambassador” follows Danish journalist, Mads Brugger as he goes undercover as a Liberian diplomat to explore the seedy underbelly of the blood diamond trade. The documentary is frightening and fascinating package, where diplomacy is bought and sold, yet Brugger pulls out a convincing yet [...]

As the two most successful directors in Hollywood in the late 1970s, Lucas and Spielberg could do whatever they wanted. And what they wanted was to express the shared love of movie serials they both loved as kids and teenagers, the same aesthetic with which Lucas bought ”Star Wars” to the screen. Think of the [...]

An author (Dennis Quaid) approaches a podium before a packed house. He announces the title of the book he’s just written, “The Words,” and begins to read a passage. It relates the story of another author, Rory Jansen (Cooper). We meet Rory and his wife, Dora (Saldana) in the back of a limousine, celebrating the [...]

“About Cherry” is a flick that doesn’t exactly live up to its name. While blisteringly red and fresh, and bound to make a few mouths water, it’s an unhealthy offering to say the least. Being the brains of a former porno star , you’d expect co-writer Lorelei Lee’s look into the world of pornography to [...]

French film, “Little White Lies” has already hit the film festival circuit and among critics has been coined the “Gallic Big Chill” a snarky, albeit fitting nickname for the familiar theme and story that explores the strengths, strains, sexual and emotional entanglements in a group of lifelong friends who set out on vacation in the [...]

Spike Lee marks his return to Brooklyn with “Red Hook Summer,” a story about a young, disgruntled boy, Flik Royale (Jules Brown), who is forced to spend his summer away from the comfortable confines of his middle class existence in Atlanta, to the projects of Brooklyn with his religious Grandfather, Bishop Enoch Rouse (Clarke Peters). [...]

Charlie Bronson (Shepard) and his girlfriend, Annie, (Bell) lie in bed, making the kind of promises only people in love make. A loud car outside alerts them that they have company. The driver is Randy (Tom Arnold). A U.S. Marshal, Randy can best be described as “clutzy.” One more spilled coffee or accidental discharge of [...]

There are 1500 bicycle messengers on the street in Manhattan every day. At least that is what we’re told in the opening narration of “Premium Rush.” If you’ve ever been to Manhattan (guilty) you can’t help but marvel at how these two-wheeled delivery boys (and girls) risk serious injury to speed through some of the [...]

And the award for most improved film franchise goes to… The Expendables. It’s rather ironic that Sly Stallone’s anti-Metamucil campaign that begun in 2010 bears the name ‘The Expendables’, considering that’s how most of Hollywood has seen most of the (literal) heavyweights in the picture since the advent of CGI, Neal Moritz and Skin-coloured padding. [...]

In 1968 Detroit, if you wanted to make it big as a singer you tried your luck at the Discovery Club. A place that gives you the chance to make your dreams come true. But what price would you pay to make those dreams come true? A remake of the 1976 film of the same [...]