Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

Radcliffe does his best with a weak script, but at this point it feels like he's trying too hard. Review

At 2.5 hours, a movie about a 19th century painter might sound like homework to many, but Leigh has made a biopic that's one of the most entertaining movies of the year. Review

The plot plays out like a poor man's Final Destination, but without the clever contrivance of its protagonists knowing the upcoming order of their impending deaths. Review

Jones proves a natural fit for this material, both as actor and director, and Swank seems born to play the strong on the outside, dying on the inside Cuddy. Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography will have you gasping for water as it captures the harshness of the arid terrain, and Marco Beltrami provides one of the year's best scores. Western fans will find The Homesman an intriguing addition to the genre, but it may prove a tad sombre... Review

Think August Osage County crossed with Meet the Parents and you'll have some idea what you're in for with this one, a combination of broad (literal) potty humour and ruminations on the meaning of family. There's nothing here you haven't seen before in the hometown return genre. Review

Australian cinema has always straddled a line between European arthouse and American commercialism. The Babadook is at its most effective when aiming for the former, and captures the essence of Polanski and Bava. Review

Coppola and her young cast make the best of a bad lot and Palo Alto may well be remembered as the movie in which we first took note of some of tomorrow's most interesting stars. Review

Maybe it will be released later down the line and we'll then reassess Bier's film, which is visually one of the most striking of the year, but in its current form, Serena is simply a disaster. Review

As a fan of soul music, I didn't think it could be possible to make a movie about Northern Soul that's so mind-numbingly dull. Review

Neither a great action movie or a particularly insightful look at the effects of war, Fury is at its most arresting in its early stages, exploring the gray areas of conflict. Sadly, it gradually all becomes very black and white, with a gung-ho third act that plays out like The Expendables in a can. Review

There's a market for this sort of thing, one that's probably gone hungry in the years since the genre's Grisham heyday. Precisely by striking all the familiar notes, it will likely find a satisfied core audience. If you're not a devotee of Grisham and his ilk, however, there's little beyond some great performances to keep you satisfied. Review

Not since Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman have we seen such a thoroughly engaging scuzzball. Review

If you can get past the film's technical issues, and can live with the predictable nature of its plot, Gold is one of the more engaging Irish dramas of recent years. Review

The Calling ultimately feels like a pilot for a TV show that wasn't considered worthy of greenlighting. Review

As with The Conjuring and the Insidious movies, the filmmaker is denied the chance to create tension and suspense through imagery alone. Leonetti sets up some great shock images, but they're consistently ruined by being telegraphed with a loud bang. Review

Like many of Hitchcock's films, it's the supporting characters that leave the greatest mark here. Review

As is customary in modern Hollywood, this is an origin story, which of course means it ends at the point a more interesting story might begin. Review

If you knew nothing of Leduc's work before, you'll be just as ignorant by the end of Violette's mind and ass numbing 139 minutes, as the appeal of her writing is never conveyed. Review

This movie is yet more proof that the zom-com is a genre that needs a headshot to put it out of its misery. Review

In Demange's hands, the story plays out like a John Carpenter homage. Review

Working on his home turf has produced his first worthwhile effort, and the positive international response to Ida may give Polish cinema the shot in the arm it needs. Review

Throwing a bunch of characters into a pot and slowly bringing them to the boil, Virzí has effortlessly crafted the sort of ensemble drama the likes of Soderbergh, PT Anderson and Paul Haggis have struggled with in the past, and delivered one of the key films of 2014. Review

What we have here is a classic example of Hollywood execs wanting to have their cake and eat it, all too happy to cash in on the name recognition of an existing property, but too embarrassed by the source material to remain true to it. Review

A Walk Among the Tombstones is far from ground-breaking, nor is it particularly original, but there's enough here to satisfy fans of the gumshoe genre. Review