Robert Denerstein

Robert Denerstein
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications: Denver Rocky Mountain News, Movie Habit, Denerstein Unleashed
Critics' Group: Broadcast Film Critics Association

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
55% The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021) Normally, I wouldn't say that a movie is worth seeing because of one dynamic performance. But The United States vs. Billie Holiday, provides an exception. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2021
89% The Vigil (2021) Eerie yes, but The Vigil also can feel dull and self-conscious in its attempts to both benefit from and avoid standard horror tropes. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2021
99% Night of the Kings (La Nuit des Rois) (2020) Like its actors, the movie has a distinctly powerful presence you won't soon forget. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2021
35% Crisis (2021) I wouldn't call Crisis a bad movie, but it does feel like a scattered and only intermittently powerful attempt to make a comprehensive statement about the culture that spawned an opioid epidemic. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2021
98% Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (2021) The movie winds up at the Grammys where Billie puts an exclamation point on her meteoric rise. At more than two hours in length, the movie feels long and a bit exhausting, but fans probably won't care. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2021
80% I Care a Lot (2021) Blakeson's written a tasty scam movie, infusing it with the kind of sizzle that sets it apart from more perfunctory efforts and he locks Pike and Dinklage in an exhilarating cage match... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 19, 2021
54% Silk Road (2021) I can't say that familiarity bred much by way of contempt, maybe because the movie hits enough genre marks to prove modestly engaging. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 19, 2021
94% Test Pattern (2021) For all that Ford sets in motion and despite the subtle ways she allows the characters to evolve, Test Pattern never seems a fully realized exploration of a difficult subject. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 19, 2021
79% Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021) ...two cluelessly funny characters who may not be worth an entire movie... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
96% Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) Judas and the Black Messiah stands as a memorable, powerful movie that leaves you wondering how Hampton might have evolved had he not been killed. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
73% The World to Come (2020) An atmosphere of hardship and deprivation serves as a backdrop that heightens the longing both women experience. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
82% Landfall (2020) Land never seems to gather the kind of thematic momentum that would have justified Edee's battle with unforgiving nature. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
98% Minari (2020) Don't expect a Rocky-style aspirational pep talk. Fair to say, then, that Minari eschews nostalgia and, though set in the 1980s, feels very much alive in the present. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
72% The Mauritanian (2021) Not surprisingly, the movie's most vivid performance is given by Tahar Rahim, as Slahi, a man who doesn't immediately tell his lawyers about his confession for fear that he'll be tortured again. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
91% Little Fish (2021) Although the movie can be a bit bland, I doubt whether many viewers will be disappointed that Little Fish plays more like romance than speculative sci-fi... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
66% Falling (2020) To add shading, Mortensen includes scenes -- moments, really -- in which Willis shows genuine affection for his son...providing much-needed nuance about the complexity of a bullying relationship. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 5, 2021
40% The Right One (2021) The plot strains to tell us why Godfrey can't simply be himself. All of this amounts to little, aside from providing each actor with an opportunity to showcase something... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 5, 2021
28% Bliss (2021) Mike Cahill's movie never makes much sense and winds up as a ragged, lunging attempt to engage questions about the nature of reality and meaning that have been better addressed in other movies. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 5, 2021
97% Two of Us (Deux) (2021) Two of Us is a touching reminder of the toxic complexities that result when secrets are kept. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 5, 2021
58% Malcolm & Marie (2020) By the time the movie ended, I felt as I'd been watching a skillful simulation of an art movie rather than the real thing. Put another way, Malcolm & Marie requires too much effort for too little reward. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2021
47% The Little Things (2021) The Little Things fulfills many of the requirements of a gritty genre piece, moving its characters through a world from which no one escapes uncorrupted, sort of a B-movie with an A-list cast and noir shading. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2021
79% The Night (2021) Ahari proves himself a master of dread and threat and Night follows a Farsi-speaking couple into a night in which their defenses begin to unravel. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 28, 2021
88% Supernova (2021) Supernova isn't a tear-jerker. The chemistry between the actors and the filmmakers results in a movie that's admirably respectful of the intimacy and burden a couple faces when confronting the inevitable. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 28, 2021
67% Penguin Bloom (2021) If you're looking for emotional complexity, Penguin Bloom is not for you. Even Watts can't turn Penguin Bloom into anything more than a familiar tale made more disarming by the presence of a magpie. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 28, 2021
85% Our Friend (2020) Cowperthwaite and her cast make you feel how inadequate we all are when it comes to facing a devastating loss -- and how improbably selfless people sometimes can be. Maybe that's enough to encourage us to overlook the movie's flaws. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 22, 2021
34% No Man's Land (2021) [It] invites us to consider questions about forgiveness and accountability (fair enough) but a persistent haze of idealization undermines credibility and creates a feeling that most of what we're seeing has been pre-programmed... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 22, 2021
100% Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself (2020) Home movies and animation are employed to varying effect but keep In & Of Itself from feeling stagebound as DelGaudio builds toward the film's emotional (really) finale. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 22, 2021
37% Outside the Wire (2021) Despite a few unexpected twists, Outside the Wire comes across as a near-generic helping of action that tries to serve up something more than standard action... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2021
99% MLK/FBI (2021) MLK/FBI stands as a movie that inspires us with King's commitment while appalling us with the lengths to which an American institution went not only to destroy him but to upend an entire movement. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2021
88% The Dig (2021) Director Stone and screenwriter Moira Buffini serve up a period piece that neither is tense nor sorrowful enough to transcend the status of a dry - or at least "dryish" - footnote. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2021
98% One Night in Miami (2020) It's lively, provocative, and engaging. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2021
92% The White Tiger (2020) White Tiger brims with social and psychological asides. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2021
93% Herself (2021) As is the case with many women like Sandra, it's difficult to draw a line marking the point where woe fades and a promising future blossoms. That understanding gives Herself its bite. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 8, 2021
76% Pieces of a Woman (2020) Pieces of a Woman stands as a collection of scenes -- some quite powerful -- that demand a lot from its cast without ever totally cohering for us. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2021
94% Hunter Hunter (2020) Hunter Hunter eventually turns into a helping of horror with an ending that sears itself into memory. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2021
81% I'm Your Woman (2020) I'm Your Woman offers surprising twists as its story unfolds around a character who seems to know less about what's going on than anyone in the movie -- other than the audience. That's not always a bad place to be. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2021
93% Sylvie's Love (2020) Bottom line: Ashe and his team have made a movie about passion, love and the binding stricture of convention that's ... well .... notable for making the style of yesterday feel fresh. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2021
96% Dear Comrades! (2021) Konchalovsky gives fly-on-the-wall immediacy to the story... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 29, 2020
95% Soul (2020) Not many will want to argue with the message and Pixar offers another deluge of creativity. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 29, 2020
59% Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) At two-and-a-half-hours, Wonder Woman 1984 doesn't have a compelling enough story to keep the movie from wearing out. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 25, 2020
98% Farewell Amor (2020) By the time the movie concludes, we have a sense that we've lived with these characters. Happily, Msangi isn't out to vilify anyone. He knows these characters and he wants us to know them, as well. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 11, 2020
89% Let Them All Talk (2020) Here, we watch three accomplished actors flirting with cliche but subverting it in favor of something Soderbergh has the good sense to appreciate: The imaginative exploration of character. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 11, 2020
94% Nomadland (2021) Zhao presents it without flourish or hype. Like Fern, the film demands to be taken as it is. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 11, 2020
29% Wild Mountain Thyme (2020) In Wild Mountain Thyme, what must have been intended as idiosyncratic and flavorful too often feels stereotypical. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 11, 2020
55% The Prom (2020) The Prom has its moments, but on screen it often feels as if it has been factory produced to become a hit. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 11, 2020
22% Last Call (2020) Although the movie runs for about an hour and 48 minutes, it can feel longer because it's like spending a day in a bar... till, hanging out with drinks -- even those who achieved legendary status -- seldom proves enlightening. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2020
84% Mosul (2020) Mosul commands attention because of its fresh perspective; the movie tells its story from the viewpoint of Iraqis whose lives have been shattered by war. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2020
83% Mank (2020) Mank proves a dense, gossipy pleasure. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2020
25% Hillbilly Elegy (2020) The storytelling can be uneven, but to ignore Hillbilly Elegy would mean missing a chance to watch Close build a character from the hard, gravelly soil... - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2020
96% Sound of Metal (2020) Raci's Joe doesn't view deafness as a disability but as a gateway to different forms of communication. Director Darius Marder creates a sound design that frequently mirrors Rubin's perspective. - Denerstein Unleashed EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2020