THE INTERN  * * *

Starring Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Anders Holm, Andrew Rannells and Rene Russo. Written and directed by Nancy Meyers. 

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“Short on incident but terribly long on portentous brooding, The Keeping Room feels like 1970’s grindhouse rape-splotiaton fare tarted up with modern prestige picture delusions of grandeur. Substituting dread for suspense, it’s an exceedingly difficult movie to sit through, and offers little reward for doing so.” – Movie Mezzanine, 09/24/2015

“There’s no arc to the story, just bullet-points over two decades. Whitey killed a lot of people and got away with it until he didn’t anymore. The filmmakers have no angle, no larger themes. The depositions haven’t been sculpted into drama. It’s a dull recitation of tired material that will feel like the Stations of the Cross to anyone who reads The Boston Herald.” – Movie Mezzanine, 09/18/2015

“A staggeringly uneventful movie made for an audience to which I obviously do not belong. I’m at a loss to convey how little happens during this picture. It’s a film almost entirely devoid of incident. Piper’s book hasn’t been shaped into anything resembling a story. It’s just unfortunate stuff that happened to a guy and then he got over it, eventually.” – Movie Mezzanine, 09/11/2015

TIME OUT OF MIND  * * * 1 / 2

Starring Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone, Kyra Sedgwick and Steve Buscemi. Written and directed by Oren Moverman.

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“The film is very much what you would expect from a movie directed by Captain America. It’s old-fashioned, a little corny, and almost impossible to resist. Before We Go isn’t a great picture nor even a particularly memorable one. But the bottom line is that I liked spending time with these people. You probably will, too.” – Movie Mezzanine, 09/04/2015

“It’s a crude scene, and damned effective. The rest of No Escape is just plain crude. It’s also a piece of stupid xenophobic trash, released at a time when another piece of stupid xenophobic trash is surging in the polls for the Republican Presidential nomination, so The Weinstein Company might have a hit on their hands.” – Movie Mezzanine, 08/28/2015

“Of interest perhaps only as a glossy bit of Eliot Spitzer fan-fiction, this tawdry tale is presented by co-writer/director Mora Stephens with a cautionary seriousness bordering on hysteria. It feels like one of those alarmist anti-drug films shown in high school classrooms: Just Say No to two-thousand-dollar-an-hour escorts.” – Movie Mezzanine, 08/28/2015

THE MEND  * * * *

Starring Josh Lucas, Stephen Plunkett, Lucy Owen, Mickey Sumner and Austin Pendelton. Written and directed by John Magary.

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“For about half the movie, it’s a wild ride. Then it becomes something else altogether; a journey of healing and advocacy, about coming to terms with a horror almost impossible to imagine, trying to take all that pain and turn it into something positive. Being from Boston I was familiar with Crimmins’ story, but I still wasn’t ready for how deep the film cut.” – Movie Mezzanine, 08/21/2015