1. The genius of Clint Eastwood is evident in the fact that nobody else could get away with this.
2. A brilliant commentary on a lot of earlier Clint Eastwood roles.
3. Eastwood directs with his usual relaxed pace and bursts of intensity, a style that's pleasing to watch -- and which, also as usual, never fully compensates for any shortcomings of the script handed to him.
4. The Eastwood legend is set against false sentiment, pot-pourried politics. There's no Disney in this Walt.
5. It's a monumentally great film and keeps you spellbound till the lights come back up again.
6. Impressively directed, emotionally engaging drama with a strong script and a terrific performance from Clint Eastwood.
7. Gran Torino is made without fuss and acted out with the kind of natural grace only a real titan of the cinema could manage. And Clint is a titan - one of the best directors in America and a performer whose range has extended mightily throughout his career
8. they don't make movies like this anymore
9. Eastwood gives us a morbid take on righting wrongs in a world that lends no help to the victimized...
10. I understand that Eastwood meant well, and it is interesting to fill up a tried-and-true movie formula with this much frank racism in order to make it different, but Gran Torino is just a well-intentioned mess.
Though a minor entry in Eastwood's body of work, Gran Torino is nevertheless a humorous, touching, and intriguing old-school parable.

1. Beyond broad stereotypes and patently obvious social observations, Can't Hardly Wait has very little to offer.
2. The film might have been good if its writer/director duo had concentrated more on characterizations and less on getting cheap laughs.
3. The movie passes the time by recycling humor you've heard before.
4. [A] messy throwback to '80s teen comedies.
5. We sit there wondering why we've even bothered to see a film about a long high school party we probably never felt the desire to go to in the first place.
6. The film is something of a mess.
7. Barry Manilow? Can't hardly wait for it to be over.
8. As far as the venerable teen sex comedy goes, this one actually makes it to third base.
9. The majority of the film is mired in magazine cliches and tired gags. Oh, look, the foreign exchange student only knows how to say he's a sex machine, haw! And the nerd's getting drunk! Hoo!
10. There are signs that Can't Hardly Wait once had more serious aspirations... But in the final edit, at least, it's the dumb, broad slapstick that prevails, short-circuiting identification with the characters before it can begin.
Occasionally clever and moderately intelligent, Can't Hardly Wait also contains too many cheap laughs, recycled plotting, and flat characters.

1. The remake shakes down as a conventionally plotted thriller. It's the performances that make it exceptional.
2. While Demme's Manchurian Candidate may be unnecessary, it's a worthy homage to the original; lacking the first film's spark but containing smarts of its own.
3. Demme's filmmaking has lost none of its jazz.
4. With an inchoate admonition implanted in its aggrieved, post-modern heart, Demme's Manchurian Candidate is blippy and fractured and smeared with color.
5. A case of smart and talented people trying to jam a Cold War square into a Gulf War circle.
6. It shunts through the material, doing some interesting synthesizing, some genetic recombining, but it all adds up to something less powerful and interesting than the original.
7. This one plays more like a contemporary techno-thriller with ultra-clammy '70s conspiracy thriller overtones, and Demme milks the atmosphere of pervasive, sleep-deprived dread beautifully.
8. A fine and thought-provoking film in its own right.
9. This humorless and nonsensical update of The Manchurian Candidate - a total misread of Frankenheimer's classic original - never quite engages, devolving the original's camp and satire into self-serious melodrama.
10. A rather decent imitation in the end with political subtext and very good performances.
While not the classic its predecessor is, this update is well-acted and conjures a chilling resonance.

1. It's well-appointed, well acted, tells a coherent story, has all the necessary pieces in place. But it never involves the viewer emotionally. It never thrills.
2. A riveting contemporary wartime melodrama.
3. The whole thing is just pointless, coming off as propaganda, glamorizing war and the military.
4. Courage Under Fire is as profound and intelligent as it is moving, and that makes this memorable motion picture one of 1996's best.
5. I heartily recommend it, especially for the great performances by Matt Damon, in his first major role, and Lou Diamond Phillips.
6. At the end of Courage Under Fire, you feel torn between admiration and annoyance with the filmmakers, who take an attention-grabbing premise and skillfully develop it into a conclusion that's pure piffle.
7. The film is driven by Washington's remarkable, burning performance.
8. An extremely moving picture that left me with my heart racing and my arms clutching myself and staring at the screen.
9. Denzel Washington has been playing well-balanced and in-control characters for quite a while and it is nice to see him playing a man with some serious emotional problems.
10. It is the kind of film which satisfies even as it leaves you suspecting that the scope should have been narrowed.

An emotional and intriguing tale of a military officer who must review the merits of a fallen officer while confronting his own war demons. Effectively depicts the terrors of war as well as its heartbreaking aftermath.