Reviews by Anton Bitel

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Charlie Bartlett (2007)

  Review preview for Charlie Bartlett

  Downey Jr's brilliance serves, paradoxically, to highlight the film's many flaws.

  A bright but troubled rich kid unexpectedly finds himself in the American ‘public school’ system – and finds a novel way of beating the bullies.
• 
  Chicken Little (2005)

  A story of misfits who save their high school (and the world) from alien invasion.
• 
  The Child (2005)

  A petty criminal decides to sell his own child on the black market. Will it be the catalyst he needs to grow up himself?
• 
  Chocó (2011)

  Review preview for Chocó

  Yet although the film is shot wide by an unmoving camera in full naturalist mode, we ultimately remain uncertain whether Chocó has taught Everlides a lesson, or just dreamt that she has.

  The story of a woman struggling on the thin line between hope and despair in a small Columbian village.
• 
  CJ7 (2008)

  Review preview for CJ7

  A Chaplinesque transformation of a drab world into a place where everything is colourful, over-the-top and silly.

  A strange toy transforms the life of a lonely young boy from an impoverished home.
• 
  Clerks II (2006)

  The clerks start life anew in another miserable retail job.
• 
  Cold Water Of The Sea (2010)

  Review preview for Cold Water Of The Sea

  This understated moodpiece is a real treat for those in tune with Lucrecia Martel's brand of nuanced suggestiveness - and is full of pretty pictures for everyone else.

  A couple on a trip to the beach have an unexpected encounter with a runaway child.
• 
  Colin (2008)

  Review preview for Colin

  This is an intelligent, moving depiction of a world gone to hell, dripping with the melancholy of a ‘hero’ still driven by a yearning from his past that he is incapable any longer of understanding.

  One man's journey into the realm of the undead... from the wrong side of life.
• 
  The Comedian (2012)

  Review preview for The Comedian

  It is precisely Ed's inertia that makes The Comedian more a sketch than a film of action – and when things do happen, it is almost in spite of the protagonist.

  Trials and tribulations of a wannabe comic.
• 
  Compassion (2013)

  Review preview for Compassion

  Oliveri is confident enough in his material to keep his camera mostly at a distance, to eschew any kind of emotion-cueing score.

  A woman confronts a burglar.
• 
  The Consequences Of Love (2004)

  Review preview for The Consequences Of Love

  Simply unmissable.

  Existential thriller explores the mystery of a quiet man in a provincial hotel.
• 
  Écoute Le Temps (2007)

  Review preview for Écoute Le Temps

  Écoute Le Temps takes that stalest of subgenres, the village green murder mystery, and turns it inside-out to invigorating effect.

  A sound recordist investigates the murder of her clairvoyant mother.
• 
  Crash (2004)

  Review preview for Crash

  Some superb acting, wince-makingly smart dialogue and ingenious cause-and-effect plotting.

  Slice of Los Angeles paranoia, incorporating fear, anger, racial tension and a miracle.
• 
  The Crazies (2010)

  Review preview for The Crazies

  If The Crazies is content just to be a ghost-train ride of empty genre thrills, at least it manages to be a slick affair, mixing convincing performances with plenty of well-handled tension.

  A mysterious toxin in the water supply drives most of the people of a small town crazy, so that they turn upon their friends and neighbours in this remake of the George Romero classic.
• 
  Cry Wolf (2005)

  A Halloween stalker in an orange ski mask might , or might not, be the invention of campus japesters in a Scream-style slashfest.
• 
  CSA: The Confederate States Of America (2004)

  What if the American south had won the Civil War?
• 
  Czech Dream (2004)

  Review preview for Czech Dream

  Klusak and Remunda's project injected a healthy dose of scepticism into Czech political discourse, reawakening thought, argument and doubt from a long, dreamy slumber.

  Two young filmmakers play an elaborate practical joke on modern Czech shopaholics.
• 
  A Dangerous Cure (2014)

  Review preview for A Dangerous Cure

  An alternative gonzo history of the Noughties.

  A tabloid journalist tries to the cause of a life-threatening epidemic in New York
• 
  Dan In Real Life (2007)

  Review preview for Dan In Real Life

  Clings steadfastly to rom-com form.

  Widower Dan meets the girl of his dreams - but she's dating his brother.
• 
  Dark Nature (2009)

  Review preview for Dark Nature

  The film is part slash-and-dash, part domestic psychodrama, and all confounded with dream sequences, tarot premonitions and bizarre roadkill POVs.

  A woman and her family come under attack while on holiday in the Highlands.
• 
  Darwin (2011)

  Review preview for Darwin

  This alien landscape, shot wide by the Swiss filmmaker with an outsider's eye for the dustily hyperreal, is teeming with strange life and even stranger stories.

  Evocative documentary about a ghost town in Death Valley, California, with a scant population of just 35.
• 
  Date Movie (2006)

  Scary Movie scribes take on the rom-com, with lavatorial enthusiasm
• 
  Damnation (1988)

  Review preview for Damnation

  The drab decay, no less moral than material, of both Karrer and the town that he haunts is so beautifully composed that no cinephile will begrudge Tarr the occasional longueur.

  Study of a man and his obssession with a bar singer.
• 
  Damsels In Distress (2011)

  Review preview for Damsels In Distress

  A disorienting, surreal blend of sophisticated verbal wit and inconsequential inanity.

  A trio of girls aim to revolutionise a stuffy, former all-male university.
• 
  The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

  Review preview for The Darjeeling Limited

  Chaotic, funny, beautifully shot and performed with a childlike deadpan.

  Three brothers take a 'spiritual journey' across India by train.
• 
  Dead Man (1995)

  Review preview for Dead Man

  A western for sleepwalkers and dreamers.

  Road movie about the friendship of a wounded young man in the western frontiers, who hooks up with a Native American.
• 
  Death Proof (2007)

  Review preview for Death Proof

  Death Proof feels exactly like what it is: a 90-minute film that has been stretched painfully to 114 minutes.

  Quentin Tarantino's glorious grindhouse send-up.
• 
  Despicable Me (2010)

  Review preview for Despicable Me

  Would be a serious examination of the family in the postmodern age, were it not so laugh-out-loud funny.

  A super-villain plots to steal the Moon.
• 
  The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

  A young journalist struggles to survive in the cut-throat world of fashion.
• 
  Disco (2019)

  Review preview for Disco

  The jarring juxtaposition of sparkly, sexualised Seventies choreography and fire-and-brimstone Catholicism is absolutely key to a film that explores the mismatch between devout religious beliefs and modernity.

  The stepdaughter of a charismatic pastor begins to question her faith
• 
  Domino (2005)

  Review preview for Domino

  As a crime caper, it is complicated enough to make even Guy Ritchie go dizzy.

  Action movie, loosely based on the life of glamour model turned bounty hunter.
• 
  Doom (2005)

  Review preview for Doom

  Unfortunately, screenwriters David Callaham and Wesley Strick have got just about everything wrong in their adaptation.

  A futuristic Marines vs monsters video game adaptation.
• 
  Dreamland (2019)

  Review preview for Dreamland

  A bittersweet vision of America barrelling down a two-lane road to nowhere.

  Amid the dust storms and economic depression of Dustbowl Era Oklahoma, Eugene Evans finds his family farm on the brink of foreclosure. His last bet to save the farm is the bounty on the head of fugitive bank robber Allison Wells.
• 
  Drowsy City (2019)

  Review preview for Drowsy City

  Both a portrait of marginalised lives in urban Vietnam, and a "Taoist" fable.

  A young man who slaughters chickens for a living finds his trouble brewing when three strange gangsters come to hide in the abandoned building where he is living, bringing violence and a young prostitute with them.
• 
  DumbLand (2002)

  Review preview for DumbLand

  Outrageously funny, but also manic, tense, irritant, disturbing and depressing.

  Absurd animated comedy.
• 
  Dynamic: 01 - The Best Of DavidLynch.com (2007)

  Review preview for Dynamic: 01 - The Best Of DavidLynch.com

  These are glimpses deep into the innermost gears and cogs of Lynch's ideas-machine, even if their very imperfection brings with it a certain disappointment.

  Collection of short films from the director.
• 
  Deadgirl (2008)

  Review preview for Deadgirl

  A sombre film that never shows more than it needs to, and never allows its more outrageous or shocking moments to descend into sadistic spectacle or farce.

  After two teenagers find a dead girl in the basement of a disused mental asylum, the boundary between right and wrong becomes sickeningly blurred.
• 
  Death At A Funeral (2007)

  Review preview for Death At A Funeral

  For farce to work well, the plotting needs to be watertight, whereas here the sheer excess of characters fails entirely to cover up this film's flimsy underpinnings.

  Funeral farce.
• 
  Deficit (2007)

  Review preview for Deficit

  Bernal proves to be a vibrant director, his swooping steadicam and queasy close-ups placing the viewer right in the middle of the party.

  After a spoiled, rich kid hosts a party, unexpected guests bring tensions to boiling point.
• 
  Depositarios (2010)

  Review preview for Depositarios

  A sedate, not always coherent construct that somehow seems less than the sum of its harvested parts.

  Futuristic clone thriller sees genetic doubles suffering the pain of their 'real world' twin.
• 
  Desearía (2010)

  Review preview for Desearía

  It channels a universally familiar kind of grief and yearning with which any viewer will easily be able to identify.

  A woman contemplates her grief.
• 
  The Detective (2007)

  Review preview for The Detective

  Combines murderous thrills with something altogether more otherworldly.

  A broke detective tries to track down a mystery woman.
• 
  District 13 (2004)

  Two reluctant heroes rush to defuse a bomb in a future Paris enclave ruled by violent gangs.
• 
  Done In (2014)

  Review preview for Done In

  A suicide-note rumination on life and loss, memory and mortality.

  A man writes a suicide note.
• 
  Don't Come Knocking (2005)

  Nostalgia for the old times as age resurrects emotions and lost lovers for a legendary film star.
• 
  Don't Worry About Me (2009)

  Review preview for Don't Worry About Me

  It is easy enough to appreciate what Don't Worry About Me might have been, but much harder to like what it is.

  After a one-night stand goes awry, a Londoner finds himself stranded and skint in Liverpool.
• 
  Doomsday Book (2012)

  Review preview for Doomsday Book

  Doomsday Book sandwiches Kim's serious and savoury speculative fiction between Yim's two altogether more absurdist slices of Armageddon.

  A trilogy of apocalyptic science fiction tales.
• 
  Dream (2008)

  Review preview for Dream

  Kim Ki-duk is using language to highlight the communicative gulf that exists between his dramatis personae.

  A woman acts out the dreams of a stranger.
• 
  Drinking Buddies (2013)

  Review preview for Drinking Buddies

  What might in lesser hands have been an aimless, stilted disaster here becomes, thanks to these capable, funny capable actors, a finely observed naturalist comedy of manners.

  Bar-fuelled intimacy between two brewery workers blurs the line between friendship and romance.
• 
  Drones (2010)

  Review preview for Drones

  Amber Benson and Adam Busch's Drones may be slight, but that low-key triviality is an essential part of its humour.

  An office worker discovers one of his colleagues is an alien.