Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

Despite its cliched and nuance free script, Fruitvale Station ultimately succeeds due to a trio of central performances from Jordan, Diaz and Spencer that are anything but cliched. Review

The film never quite settles on what story it wants to spin. Review

If this is indeed to be Loach's final film, lacking the courage of his socialist convictions means he'll go out with a whimper rather than the bang we might have expected from such a confrontational film-maker. Review

This is the sort of comedy even Adam Sandler would be embarrassed to put his name to. Review

Jolie gives the performance of her career, ranging from malevolent but melancholy rage to hilariously deadpan comic timing. Review

Though it lacks that extra touch of invention that might have elevated Cheap Thrills to a future cult classic, the script is tightly wound and allows its plot to uncoil in a clever manner. Review

As filmed plays go, this is one of the laziest. Review

Turkeys like Mr and Mrs Smith and Jumper have badly damaged Liman's reputation; a shame, as with early gems like Swingers, Go and The Bourne Identity he proved himself skilled at delivering on the dual fronts of comedy and action. Here he combines both disciplines to wonderful effect, and the result is the most enjoyable blockbuster to come out of Hollywood in quite some time. Credit must also go to McQuarrie and the Butterworth... Review

Only the presence of Allen springs the movie into life but he seems uncomfortably out of place here, despite Turturro’s insistence on scoring his scenes with trad jazz, a move that only makes you wish all the more that you were watching Allen in one of his own movies. Review

Not just the worst film of the year so far but also the most offensive... Review

The Canyons is an uncomfortable watch thanks to the portrayal of its industry protagonists, but as the pained outcry of a film-maker who both lived through and contributed to cinema's most fertile period, it can't be dismissed. Review

Edwards' film moves at a rapid pace, so an extra half hour of humans in peril certainly wouldn't have slowed it down and may well have elevated it to the level of his fellow Brit Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the one truly great sci-fi blockbuster of our time. Review

Ayer and co-writer Skip Woods might boast of how unpredictable their script is, but it only contains the element of surprise because the plot twists make little sense and the logistics of how certain characters were able to pull off certain events are never explained. Review

There's a lot of clutter in Before the Winter Chill, with Claudel constantly bombarding us with his thoughts on colonialism, absent fathers and the role of bankers in the economic crisis, but when he focuses on the meat of the plot, the relationship between Paul and Lou, his film is a melancholy marvel. Review

Olsen and Isaacs are two of the best American actors of their generation but following reputation making performances in Martha Marcy May Marlene and Inside Llewyn Davis respectively, they've made a series of poor career choices, of which In Secret is the latest. Review

There's hardly a shot, cut or line of dialogue here that doesn't advance the story. Saulnier never gives us too much information, nor too little, we simply see and hear all we need to. Review

The Two Faces of January is a film that can't seem to decide on the story it wants us to follow, or which of its characters we should be rooting for. The film's second act ends on a shocking twist, from which it never recovers, leaving us with two faces whose fates we no longer care about. Review

With the same premise famously stolen for the 1986 Danny De Vito comedy Ruthless People, and reworked several times since, Life of Crime feels three decades past its sell by date. Review

Firmly shaking off the stigma of genre cinema for international audiences, Asian drama seems to be in something of a golden age, and Chen is a name to watch. Review

Though it's got plenty of laughs, like all too many contemporary comedies, Bad Neighbours suffers from a lack of anything resembling a story the viewer can get invested in. Review

As soon as Rebecca leaves her hospital bed, the film morphs into a domestic drama, and a rather trite and cliched one at that. Review

In Bloom is a polished piece of cinema, with a stunning central performance from the young Babluani, and the cinematography of Romanian master Oleg Mutu, captures a second world state in first rate style. Review

Plastic could well be subtitled Ocean's 14, that number representative of the mental age of the film's target audience. Review

Unlike most of Luc Besson's recent productions, Brick Mansions is a whole lot of fun, even if it is for all the wrong reasons. Review