Search: Directed by Paul Schrader

The characters in this film suffer torment and pain, much like the audience.

Schrader uses the monochrome landscape to great effect, slowly building a tension.

The film's attempt at softcore titillation fails; it's like a tacky home movie, masquerading as social comment.

A world in which the thrill of the act has been lost because everything has become pornography.

Tightly wrapped doesn't begin to cover it.

A largely conventional thriller about the last-gasp of mission of a die-hard CIA agent that is lent moments of surprising poignancy and glimmers of madness thanks to Nic Cage's performance.

The threadbare plot relies on the performances and writing to underpin this narrative simplicity.

Long-winded, overwrought and totally without a climax.

First Reformed ends up being a satisfying meditative echo rather than a simple replay of Schrader greats.

Light Sleeper doesn't belong in any oeuvre. The feeling is personal, introspective, wounded.

In the end, the Mishima enigma remains elusive, which is perhaps the point.

Weaver...hasn’t had a role this rich for years, and is magnificent throughout.

Simply put, the viewer is constantly tempted to attribute the character’s old man’s ramblings both to the author of the source novel and to the filmmaker adapting it.

Natasha Richardson gives an intelligent performance that captures the intensity of her fear, without losing touch with the humanity of a situation that involves other women with different agendas.

After an intriguing start, it runs out of ideas.

A real cinematic gem disguised as a rhinestone.