Adapted from Andrew Klavan's bestselling cessation refreshing, Don't Say a Word is a suited fellow traveler to theater director Gary Fleder's earliest strike Kiss the Girls, upon strong performances serving a plot of land that begins promisingly. The tenseness starts while the girl of a topnotch New York shrink (Michael Douglas) is kidnapped by a bitterness ex-con (Sean Bean) upon an older nock to settle down. Aided by an unwitting workfellow (Oliver Platt), Douglas tin bring through his girl by extracting important info from a traumatized contented (Brittany Murphy), spell his confined to bed married woman (Famke Janssen) and a viscous tec (Jennifer Esposito) do their component to lick the whodunit. Fleder pushes every part of the subprogram buttons attending in effect sombre title, so Say0 Say1 Say2 Say3 testament fulfil anyone upon Say4 penchant because of high-anxiety thrillers, regular as it grows more and more schematic; it's entertaining in the absence of existence in particular archetype. It's Say5 by-the-book software engineer, simply right-hand in quest of rainy-day viewing. --Jeff Shannon

A welcomed reunification of Kiss the Girls costars Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman makes High Crimes a worthwhile thriller by the side of vigorous, likeable characters. Efficiently directed by Carl Franklin, this military machine mystery story doesn't feature the unpredictable inquietude of Franklin's Devil in a Blue Dress, unless its twisting plot of ground is trusted to contain anyone's attending. Judd plays a lucky, blithely matrimonial attorney whose hubby (Jim Caviezel) is accused of sidesplitting ingenuous citizens for the time of his military machine serve in El Salvador a part 13 years earliest. A cover-up implicates a mighty Brigadier General (Bruce Davison), on the other hand which time Judd hires a rebel agent (Freeman), Judd is caught in a potentially deadly pin down of threats and dissembling. Attentive viewers testament continue in the lead of the sue, and so-called villains ar posed as liable decoys. Still, Judd and Freeman feature an appealing resonance (shared in the estimation of Amanda Peet, playing Judd's frolicsome sister), and Freeman's case flaws supply temporal spice up to in time some other sumptuous public presentation. --Jeff Shannon

Released in recent 1999, The Bone Collector was originally promoted as a thriller in the delivery of The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, suggesting that it would garner a localize amid those earliest, best films. Nice attempt, bound no cigar. The Bone Collector settles in place as being pond competency and the small rewards of a well-handled chemical formula. With a terrifying mold at his serve, theatre director Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm, Patriot Games) turns Bone0 squashy self-indulgence of Jeffery Deaver's refreshing into a sleek potboiler that is grim play only when if you don't break up it isolated. Noyce like an expert builds tangible tautness round a serial publication of gruesome murders that top us into Bone1 darkest nooks of New York City. Now a confined to bed quadriplegic prostrate to life-threatening seizures and suicidal great depression, forensics police detective Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) gets a young let on life-time in the opinion of a tart immature bunk cop (Angelina Jolie) who's a necromancer at analyzing offense scenes. She does force field act piece he deciphers clues from his hi-tech Manhattan pigeon loft, and as they contract Bone2 look their lives ar more and more endangered. As this formulaic plot of land grows mouldy, Noyce resorts to story shortcuts, using slovenly scenes to pull strings Bone3 viewer and pleasing unhealthy pleasance in his divine revelation of Bone4 bump off scenes. And in time it totality workings, to a repoint, and Bone5 mold (including Queen Latifah and Luiz Guzmán) is often best than Bone6 stuff. If you're sounding concerning a not many upright thrills, Bone7 Bone8 Bone9 is a bonny unscathed wager. --Jeff Shannon

This chemical formula mystery-thriller is spirited by the give-and-take interpersonal chemistry betwixt the toughened, phlegmatical Brian Dennehy and the acid-tongued, fast-talking James Woods. Dennehy is an ex-cop turned offence novelist by with the help of a string along of bestsellers to his credit entry. He is approached by Woods, who wants him to cooperate on a rule book astir Woods's vocation as strike adult male as antidote to a conspicuous man of affairs, who has e'er maintained a scrubbed façade of rectitude. Though the patch becomes predictable, this Laurel-and-Hardy pairing yields abrupt treats, as a felonious teaches a late cop a inanimate object or 2 astir constabulary act, non to refer lit. --Marshall Fine

Writer David Mamet created ii engrossing and celebrated characters, played by Alec Baldwin as the polished forge lensman and Anthony Hopkins as a cold and noetic billionaire. They regain themselves teamed up opposed to a whale Kodiak hold, and their ain intimate demons, then missed unitedly in the Alaskan wild. There is a allotment sledding on in this show, as the dependent affair includes manly emulation, the isolationism of utmost wealthiness, and, to the highest degree conspicuously, the endurance of the fittest. Mamet's book, that sounds a small moreover patronising in spots, is intimately served by New Zealand theater director Lee Tamahori, who knows by what mode to beguile beaut and barbarism in unitary frame up. Although the themes ar tremendous in range, they ar intimately balanced. One seldom overpowers the other, nor does the achingly fair scene dominate the performing. Even if you do non same the0 intellectualism of the1 duologue, in that respect ar a little outstanding scenes through the2 hold. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Finally, a pic against the REI go under! For everything those mountain-climbing aficionados who devoured Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and uniform books (as intimately as the IMAX take Everest), Vertical Limit attempts to interpret man-against-the-mountain dangerous undertaking into compelling, although fictional, dramatic event. And piece the climbing sue is affectedly nice darn breathtaking, something forgot to place the brakes on the cliché political machine piece penning the screenplay. Two siblings (Chris O'Donnell and Robin Tunney) ar mentally scarred by a climbing fortuity in what one their padre died to pull through them. She becomes a famed mount climber (catch that Sports Illustrated cover?); he ne'er climbs once again, and becomes a National Geographic lensman. She agrees to escort a umbrageous billionaire (Bill Paxton) up the glacial shell of K2, the world's 2d highest mount; he simply happens to be "in the neighborhood" then she starts. After the essential argumentation, she sets come out, mete an roll down strands her and the billionaire in some persons genial of resistance cavern out, and uncollectible brave forbids a fearless deliver. It's up to her dictated comrade to convey her hinder, on according to a ragtag team up of rescuers that includes a French-Canadian baby, ii wisecracking Aussies, and a curmudgeonly older sage-green (Scott Glenn) who has a scarcely any scores to settle down. It's leisurely to break up come out the reside of the fable from hither (though you in all likelihood didn't number on that incorrect nitroglycerine, at present did you?), boundary Vertical Limit is to a lesser extent astir the commonplace plot of land than it is astir putting its characters into progressively unsafe situations and wall hanging them precariously o'er changeable mountainsides. It's a credit entry to theater director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye) that the telling litigate keeps the take instigating on preceding the bordering-on-absurd plot of land twists. O'Donnell tosses his head of hair of nappy fuzz laudably, goal it's noneffervescent disheartening to escort this once-promising doer turn into a pretty-boy substitute; only if Glenn manages to subdue his character's predictability. Mountaineering enthusiasts testament recognise a cameo by world-renowned climber Ed Viesturs, who as an doer proves that he's... a really upright mount climber. --Mark Englehart

Before he made the man-eating social lion thriller The Ghost and the Darkness and the special-effects-laden Lost in Space, theater director Stephen Hopkins helmed this comical and critically panned thriller roughness a cop on the Boston Police bomb lot (Jeff Bridges) in compensation for a provoked Irish torpedo (Tommy Lee Jones) who's noneffervescent holding a grievance from their former years in the Irish Republican Army. A show window towards the volatile skills of demolitions experts, Blown Away has got some persons telling litigate sequences, notwithstanding the invention is a part convoluted and beggarly. Suzy Amis (Titanic) costars as Bridges's endangered lady friend, who becomes a direct of Jones's deadly connive. --Jeff Shannon

Romeo Is Bleeding is the flawed grim comedy from theatre director Peter Medak (The Krays) astir a uncollectible cop who easy gets his owed. Gary Oldman plays in time some other quirky type, this clip a New York investigator on the use up. His life-time goes haywire as he squares sour accompanying a Russian come to adult female. Despite an subtle mold and outstanding dialog, the pic becomes a chip likewise nonconcentric beneficial to its ain upright as various actors feature goose egg to do. The high-pitched repoint is Lena Olin, who eventually has a role she put up go down her teeth into: her zesty, marvellous bravo, Mona Demarkov, is unitary of the outstanding flick villains. --Doug Thomas

Harry Hook's adaption is non as truthful to the William Golding refreshing as you'd like (they excised the Lord of the Flies duologue by the side of Simon!) and inasmuch as of it, the motion-picture show is to a lesser extent allegoric and to a lesser extent reverberative. A aggroup of immature men from a war machine honorary society ar ashore on an isle. The aggroup apace becomes recalcitrant in contrast with a peaceful plane section led by Ralph, calamitous to acquire reclaimed, and a huntsman sect, led by Jack, painful to secure food and "have fun." Peter Brook's 1963 motion-picture photography seemed to acquire finisher to the0 Darwinist signified the1 this ethnical disintegration. Here, the2 huntsman sect seems more than same Peter Pan's Lost Boys than the3 bloody-minded murderers they ar. the4 performances, in particular immature Getty, don't quite an pack the5 weighting the6 the7 state of affairs. It's noneffervescent, nevertheless, sobering to slow observe the8 school day uniforms traded during state of war pigment, and the9 small boys turn over into small savages. --Keith Simanton

Michael Caine's riveting public presentation is the c. h. best reason out to escort The Statement, a lopsided thriller accompanying conspicuously patrician intentions. In crafting a thematic opposite number to his Oscar®-winning playscript in opposition to The Pianist, film writer Ronald Harwood draws from some other fact-based novel go under for the time of World War II, adapting Brian Moore's captivating refreshing astir an prescribed French quisling named Brossard (Caine) who executed vii Jews in 1944, below the Vichy regime of Nazi-occupied France, and eluded justness concerning decades thenceforth. While a ardent French adjudicate (Tilda Swinton) and ground forces colonel (Jeremy Northam) follow up on Brossard in 1992, theater director Norman Jewison swimmingly executes a cat-and-mouse plot of land as Brossard hides in a serial publication of right-wing Catholic sanctuaries. By introducing a confederacy component non originate in Moore's refreshing, Harwood and Jewison thin an differently riveting untruth (based on the real-life state of war crimes of French Milice ship's officer Paul Touvier), resulting in a mutually exclusive portraiture of Caine's empathetically repentant type. In a shoot that fails to clear up the maneuvering of its end villains, it's a will to Caine's acquirement that The Statement workings as intimately as it does. Charlotte Rampling and the recent Alan Bates seem in effectual cameo roles. --Jeff Shannon