Buffalo Soldiers, directed by Gregor Jordan, appears to be a retake of Catch 22 (1970). The film takes place in October 1989 and centers on the 317th Supply Battalion, commanded by Colonel Berman (played by Ed Harris), at an army base in Stuttgart, Germany. Since there is no enemy, what do the soldiers do with their time? […]

The term “serial killer” was first coined to describe Ted Bundy, who killed at least thirty-six college-age girls, mostly from 1974-1978. His odd killing spree has inspired several books and movies. Directed by Paul Shapiro, the film The Stranger Beside Me is based on the 1980 biographic novel by Ann Rule (played by Barbara Hershey), who first

Tolstoy asks, “Why does a man enjoy killing?” In House of Fools (Dom durakov), a Russian film directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, a true story filmed at what serves as an insane asylum, mental patients are caught in the middle of the Chechen War. In the early part of the film, we become acquainted with several patients,

The Horseman (Konjanik), directed by Branco Ivanda, is based in part on a true story from the mid-eighteenth century featuring interactions across the border of present-day Bosnia and Croatia. The film needs more editing to be historically intelligible for those unfamiliar with the history of the region, though the plot is easily understood as involving

When The Hunted, directed by William Friedkin, begins, two hunters are killed and savagely butchered in the Oregon wilderness while hunting elk. The FBI summons L.T. Bonham (played by Tommy Lee Jones) from his hideaway retreat in the British Columbia wilderness to track the murderer. LT quickly concludes that the murder suspect is Aaron Hallam (played

Identity, directed by James Mangold, begins with a confusing fastforward prologue, consisting of newspaper clippings, including photos, about a boy who was abandoned by parents at a motel and then jumps to a second scene, where a psychiatrist (played by Alfred Molina) argues that Malcolm Rivers (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince), a man about to

When films present the problems of ordinary people, we expect to learn how they could have avoided their plight. The Human Stain, directed by Robert Benton, is very insightful about how those problems emerge but suggests that nothing often can be done to avoid life’s train wrecks. The story is told by Nathan Zuckerman (played by

In 1854, a white man was executed for killing a black man in Texas; the black man was the slave of a white man, so the crime involved destruction of private property, since blacks were not considered persons who could be murdered. To date, no white man has ever been executed in Texas for killing

The Legend of Suriyothai, directed and written by Prince Chatrichalerm Pikol, is an epic film with a cast of thousands recounting two decades in the history of Thailand from 1528 that center on the way in which Suriyothai (played by Lady Piyapas Bhirombhakdi) paved the way for the two loves of her life to gain