What starts as a cancer drama shifts to a thriller that plays out almost seemingly in real time.

After gradually building up the suspense, the last 20 minutes of The Invitation are incredibly intense, mirroring the film’s opening, and violent, scene.

In Atom Egoyan’s latest film, a masterly acted and suspenseful vengeance flick, the assured, multilayered script triggers the kind of immense grief that has suffused Egoyan’s work, particularly in how lives are impacted by larger tragedies.

The rough and intense Triple 9 goes to the limit of what we’ve seen of corrupt cops in movies, and with a near-perfect cast: Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, and Aaron Paul. In other words, it’s another button pushing, balls-to-the-wall John Hillcoat movie.

The first 10 minutes of Momentum features a ludicrously awful bank heist. The thieves are dressed all in black with motorcycle helmets, and their jumpsuits have what look like computerized, pulsating reflector tape. They all speak through voice distorters, presumably to skirt identity, but in actuality they sound like Cylons from the old Battlestar Galactica. […]

There’s a sequence in the narco thriller Sicario where we’re just watching characters driving. More specifically, it’s protagonist Kate (Emily Blunt) in a big black SUV in the midst of other big black SUVs and Mexican police patrol cars barreling through Juarez, Mexico. They’re transporting a criminal kingpin who’s part of a Mexican drug cartel. […]

The classy thriller Maryland singlehandedly jolted me from encroaching jet lag during my first full day at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. (The not-as-elegant English title is the blunter Disorder.) The screening was in the early afternoon after lunch, making it particularly sleep inducing. The movie’s initial slow pace and the often dreamy, bordering on […]

Written and Directed by Anders Morgenthaler Produced by Marie Gade and Julie Lind-Holm Released by Brainsorm Media Germany/Denmark. 97 min. Not rated With Kim Basinger, Jordan Prentice, Peter Stormare, and Sebastian Schipper “We’ll just be a sad couple.” This is what Maria (Kim Basinger) is told by her husband, Peter (Sebastian Schipper), after a devastatingly […]

Directed by Kornel Mundruczo Produced by Viktoria Petranyi Written by Kata Weber, Mundruczo, and Petranyi Released by Magnolia Pictures Hungarian with English subtitles Hungary/Germnay/Sweden. 119 min. Rated R With Zsofia Psotta, Luke and Bodie, Sandor Zsoter, Szabolcs Thuroczy, Lili Monori, Laszlo Galffi, Lili Horvath, and Kornel Mundruczo Points should always be given for a unique […]