Contributor: Paul Asay

While Chuck’s unlikely moral victory against the great Mohammad Ali might’ve inspired the movie Rocky, this flick is really about how Rocky changed Chuck—and not for the better.

With so much to say, the filmmakers struggled with how to say it, resulting in a confused and rather creepily off-putting story.

Phoenix Forgotten is not as problematic as many of its horrific peers. But that doesn’t mean it’s worth buying a ticket for.

The Promise’s painful portrait of the Armenian genocide isn’t an easy one to watch. But the story it tells is worth hearing.

We find no cheery life lessons in the unremitting violence of Free Fire. No moral core. No heroes to root for. Just a lot of villains.

Tommy’s Honour is a heartfelt, sometimes difficult dramatization of two of golf’s founding fathers.

While this basketball film sometimes stumbles a bit narratively and content-wise, on the court its slam dunk maestros literally soar.

Belko’s real experiment may be on moviegoers: Just how much meaningless death can we stomach? Just how much gore can we endure?

Less a horror film than a moody, sensual thriller, the film delves into realms of the bizarre and forbidden.

The Last Word could use an addendum: This R-rated movie wants to say something, but it seems confused about what that message should be.

Tim Timmerman, Hope of America mostly offers families a nice, watchable alternative to more salacious comedic fare.

Logan is, in short, frustrating. It’s painfully bloody and oddly beautiful, insanely profane and strangely spiritual.

Collide is really a mess of a movie—as jarring and nonsensical as any of the many, many crashes we see in it.

But whatever important ideas about racial alienation this movie may be trying to illustrate, we also can’t lose sight of how it chooses to express itself—in bloody, profane ways.

Fist Fight tries to tell us that what we say and do, and how we live our lives, matters. But it undercuts its own message by not caring much about its own story or content or, frankly, its audience.