Charlotte Gray does little to tarnish Cate Blanchett's rising-star status but misfires badly as a moralistic World War II drama. The title character of the film, which is based on a popular novel of the same name by Sebastian Faulks, is a young Scottish woman (Blanchett) who has come to London to help with the war effort. After quickly falling in love with a dashing pilot who is summarily shot down in southwest France, the intensely patriotic Charlotte joins a special operations outfit in order to find him. Competent melodrama to this point, the film goes astray from here. Since repeated references are made to Charlotte's fluent French, it is hard to maintain any suspension of disbelief when she parachutes into Lezignac and we discover that the French resistance fighters she works with speak English with alternately French or British accents (while the Nazis continue to speak German without subtitles). A similarly perfunctory schema of good versus evil among the citizenry is soon laid out as collaborators and patriots are painted with equally simplistic strokes. Blanchett, along with Billy Crudup and Michael Gambon, gives a lively performance despite a shoddy script, but director Gillian Armstrong's conceits to a mainstream audience seem jumbled and not a little condescending. --Fionn Meade
-from Amazon.com website

Earnest and well-meaning, this film also accumulates power as it goes along, despite its inability to generate any moral complexity. But then how complex can you get in a story about the Japanese imprisonment and mistreatment of an international group of women (including Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, and Julianna Margulies)? Written and directed by Bruce Beresford, it's based on a true story. Japanese brutality has been well chronicled before; the real story here is the way these women of different social and ethnic backgrounds achieve a sense of solidarity in the face of potentially deadly abuse. Strong performances and many uplifting and moving moments. --Marshall Fine
-from Amazon.com website

Blessed by a fantastic cast and slick direction by Mike Newell, Pushing Tin is one of those invigorating movies (like Wall Street or All the President's Men) that takes you behind the scenes of a dramatic profession--in this case, the high-stress world of air-traffic controllers--and throws in a source of conflict to ramp up the tension. For ace "tin-pusher" Nick Falzone (John Cusack), that conflict arrives in the form of Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton), an Irish/Choctaw half-breed whose Zen-like control of air traffic immediately puts Nick on the defensive. Add an incident of infidelity and Nick's subsequent self-loathing and guilt, and Pushing Tin turns into a macho pissing match, with Nick's and Russell's spouses (Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie, respectively) stuck in the middle. At that point, this otherwise splendid comedy-drama turns almost fatally silly, and it hits additional turbulence by lapsing into a predictable series of pat resolutions. Fortunately, the jazzy cast avoids a nosedive into the tarmac, and if you recall Blanchett's Oscar-nominated performance in Elizabeth, you'll be amazed by her flawless transformation into a smart and sweetly devoted New Jersey housewife. Dialogue is a major asset here, and the script (by TV veterans Glen and Les Charles) gives Cusack & Co. plenty to chew on. That makes Pushing Tin a breezy good time, and its flaws are easily forgiven. --Jeff Shannon
-from Amazon.com website

For truly clever dialogue and a smartly structured plot, you can't go wrong with Oscar Wilde. Wilde's play An Ideal Husband is not his best known, but this film adaptation has all the wit you could ask for and a cast with the chops to deliver it: Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, Oscar and Lucinda), Julianne Moore (Short Cuts, Boogie Nights), Minnie Driver (Grosse Pointe Blank, Big Night), Jeremy Northam (The Winslow Boy, Emma), and especially Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding, A Midsummer Night's Dream), who tosses off perfect epigrams with unflappable aplomb. The plot hinges on Northam, a member of Parliament (the British governing body, not the funk band) with a skeleton in his closet who is blackmailed into a shady business deal by a lady of mystery (Moore), who turns out to be a loathed school chum of the parliamentarian's wife (Blanchett). Everything is resolved happily, but not until after some devious twists of fate, several mistaken identities, lots of comic banter, and much social skewering. Wilde, who came to ruin when his homosexuality was brought to light, has a sharp eye for hypocrisy and the artificial poses demanded by society--but political commentary never gets in the way of a smart laugh. Visually sumptuous and briskly paced, An Ideal Husband will satisfy anyone looking for social satire or romantic comedy. --Bret Fetzer
-from Amazon.com website

Chemistry and quirkiness--and a stellar cast--help make Barry Levinson's Bandits more than just another comedy about ill-matched outlaws. Levinson's deft touch in Rain Man is evident in the film's road-movie structure, which follows bank robbers Joe (Bruce Willis) and Terry (Billy Bob Thornton) on a crime spree from Oregon to California. They're eventually joined by an aspiring stuntman and getaway driver (Troy Garity, son of Jane Fonda) and a neglected housewife (Cate Blanchett) who falls in love with both Joe and Terry after escaping her boring marriage. As scripted by Twin Peaks alumnus Harley Peyton, Bandits shifts from character comedy to crime thriller with reckless abandon, and the humor (particularly Terry's multiple neuroses) is occasionally forced and flat. Levinson compensates with offbeat moments of unexpected tenderness, allowing his cast to express depths of character not necessarily found in the script. A twist ending won't surprise attentive viewers, but it gives Bandits the extra kick it needs. --Jeff Shannon
-from Amazon.com website