Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

Reichardt removes all the usual tropes of the suspense thriller, and the result is a film that will test the patience of many a viewer. Stick with it though and you'll find it's an effective character drama, with a trio of cracking central performances. Review

While The Guest feels like a product of a more innocent era, it never explicitly references any earlier works, and never winks knowingly at its audience. This is a film that's unashamedly proud to be a genre movie, and so it should be, as it's the best thriller we've seen in a long, long time. Review

The film is comprised of three storylines, but I use that term loosely. They're really just jokes with no punchlines, and are so uninspired they would have been rejected by the producers of the worst of those many anthology series that clogged up Cable TV schedules in the 80s. Review

As it is, we'll have to file it under flawed, almost-masterpiece. Review

For a movie from the writer of The Station Agent and the director of Lars and the Real Girl, this is as safe and sugary as they come, but the charisma of Hamm, Bell and Arkin, combined with that indefinable romance of the featured sport, make it watchable for baseball novices. Review

Her character's immature potty mouth makes her intensely unlikable, but the film itself also trades in gutter humour. Review

The visual effects are very impressive, but all this hard work is wasted, as it never plays into creating any suspense or tension. Review

Like 2011's Limitless, Lucy is based on the ludicrous notion that humans only use 10% of our brain power. After watching the movie, I felt like I had lost 90% of my brain cells. Review

Deliver Us From Evil purports to be inspired by a real-life cop/priest duo in the NYPD. That sounds like the basis for a very interesting movie, but this isn't it. Review

Like the best parties, you won't remember a thing about The Expendables 3 the following morning, but you'll be glad you were there. Review

Relying on the charm of its cast rather than pulling you into anything approaching a story, What If feels like a pilot for a TV comedy series. It promises much but delivers little, yet you're left wanting more from its infectious characters. Review

Take away its instagram indie veneer and WGGOOTP is the sort of C-grade thriller that would have gone straight to video shelves back in the 90s. Review

Whatever you might think of his contentious off-screen persona, on-screen Depardieu is a big ball of charisma, and it's easy to see Deveraux as a seductive charmer, exuding a little boy lost vulnerability despite the protection of his wealth and status. Review

For a movie about fine cuisine, The Hundred Foot Journey is as bland as a service station panini; it'll fill a hole for a couple of hours, but you won't be thinking about it for too long afterwards. Review

This is a very worthwhile entry in the thriller genre, and it's the type of adult oriented genre offering we no longer get from mainstream Hollywood. Review

At an economical 81 minutes, Carbone makes every shot count, each cut snapping into place like an essential jigsaw puzzle piece. At a time when so many films favour bladder testing run times, Carbone reminds us that the secret of cinema lies in moments, not minutes. Review

The Grand Seduction ultimately comes up lacking in the originality department, but it has a breezy charm that makes it hard to dislike, and Gleeson is outstanding as a man who, in his words, “just wants to go to bed tired again.”... Review

God's Pocket is a film packed with ludicrous moments... Review

GOTG aims for the tone of late 80s action movies like Roadhouse, Tango & Cash and Big Trouble in Little China, but it replaces innocent naivete with knowing smugness, and the result comes off as a particularly expensive piece of Firefly fan fiction. Review

It's not a complete failure, and the much maligned Ratner handles the action sufficiently well, but ultimately Johnson's unique charm is wasted, and the best efforts of British hams McShane and Hurt fail to elevate it above direct to video level. Review

Before his film turns into another bland revenge story, Green shows what a great documentarian of character he can be. Review

Rise... hinted at the beginning of a great new sci-fi series. While Dawn doesn't fully deliver on that promise, it's a must see for ape devotees, and in the current climate of superheroes and giant robots, it's admirable that Hollywood is willing to give us a sci-fi movie with both heart and brains. Review

Three of French cinema's finest contemporary stars, Rahim, Ménochet and Seydoux are quietly on fire here... Review

It's certainly a departure from Pattinson's star-making pasty faced pretty boy vampire turn in the Twilight series, but it's a highly mannered piece of acting that comes off like an impersonation of Billy Bob Thornton's turn in Slingblade. Pearce, on the other hand, delivers a wholly naturalistic, subtle performance, confirming his status as one the most under-rated actors of his generation. Review