In the Dark

In the Dark is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s):
Rating Title/Year Author
The Hunt (2012) Jonathan F. Richards The film glosses over some of the drama of the story's resolution, but otherwise it maintains a steady terrible drumbeat of the horrifyingly credible wreck of the life of an innocent man. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) Jonathan F. Richards The Wall wrestles with the kind of dystopian philosophical questions that keep the sophomore year of college in business. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
Still (2012) Jonathan F. Richards The fact that this is a "based on a true story" tale gives it a boost of legitimacy, and adds to our exasperation with a world in which common sense seems to have gone the way of the passenger pigeon. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
Shouting Secrets (2011) Jonathan F. Richards Shouting Secrets is a good-hearted movie with plenty of flaws, but with enough strength and appeal that you're inclined to forgive it its trespasses. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
The Act of Killing (2012) Jonathan F. Richards It's surreal, phantasmagorical, and utterly devastating. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
The Attack (2012) Jonathan F. Richards In The Attack, the powerful and mostly-engrossing new film from Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri (West Bank), the terrible chasm of deep-rooted prejudice underlies a story of violence, fanaticism, deception, love, and heartbreak. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
A Hijacking (2013) Jonathan F. Richards If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be captured by pirates and held for ransom, this movie is as close as you are likely to get, or care to. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
Casting By (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Welcome to the world of the casting director, a world that flourished at its peak from the middle to the end of the last century. And meet its high priestess: Marion Dougherty. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
Fill the Void (2012) Jonathan F. Richards This is a movie with many strengths, from a subtly conceived lighting scheme to a complex understanding of its characters' conflicted emotions, and universally strong performances. EDIT
Posted Aug 15, 2013
20 Feet From Stardom (2013) Jonathan F. Richards Morgan Neville's exhilarating documentary brings these backups singers front and center, and illuminates a dynamic of the 20th century rock music scene that too often got taken for granted. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
Midnight's Children (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Midnight's Children manages to keep things pretty interesting, in a straightforward sort of way, with some good scenes and captivating imagery. But it never takes wing with the soaring possibilities of the novel's abracadabra magic. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
Love Is All You Need (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and say "This is wonderful," despite a storyline that telegraphs its scenes like a Western Union operator with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
Kon-Tiki (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Great adventures can make great movies, but it doesn't always work out that way. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
In Bed with Ulysses (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Directors Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna have done a loving job of burrowing into the epic story of the circumstances and struggles involved in the writing and publishing of this seminal work of 20th century literature. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
In the House (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Sex and menace hover perpetually around the edges of this superior psychological thriller from Francois Ozon (Potiche, Swimming Pool). Occasionally they even take center stage. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
Hannah Arendt (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Hannah Arendt is a hymn to thinking. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
Snow White (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Berger directs this retro tour-de-force with great gusto, and the performances are excellent. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
Before Midnight (2013) Jonathan F. Richards If you are not a fan of intelligent conversation in the movies, stop right here and go see Fast & Furious 6. Because talk is pretty much what you get. But it's fascinating talk. EDIT
Posted Jul 2, 2013
Zero Dark Thirty (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Jessica Chastain delivers a powerful performance, and recent history teaches us that a glamorous woman agent is entirely possible in the agency, but sometimes you have to question Maya's outfits. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
West of Memphis (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Director Amy Berg builds West of Memphis with the gripping suspense of a police thriller; but real life has not cooperated in providing an ending. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Stand Up Guys (2012) Jonathan F. Richards What makes it work is the mastery of its three venerable lead actors, and the deep pockets of career history they bring along for this joy ride. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Side Effects (2013) Jonathan F. Richards The movie revels in its twists and turns, and in the convoluted world of movie thriller logic most of them more or less work. Ask your doctor if Side Effects is right for you. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Promised Land (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Promised Land is a modern Frank Capra movie, and few in the audience will doubt where it, and Steve, are headed. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Precious Life (2010) Jonathan F. Richards The terrible irony of this whole saga is the intense effort to save one tiny life while outside the hospital lives on both sides are being snuffed out wholesale. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
On the Road (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Youth will be served, but in Walter Salles's rendering of On the Road, Jack Kerouac's seminal novel of a generational revolution at mid-century, it's served a little underdone. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Molly's Theory of Relativity (2013) Jonathan F. Richards Jeff Lipsky (Flannel Pajamas) steers his story through intriguing waves of philosophical clarity and doldrums of talky boredom. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Masquerade (2012) Jonathan F. Richards It's a robust, colorful, masterfully-spun yarn. It calls to mind the great MGM technicolor swashbucklers of the forties and fifties, particularly The Prisoner of Zenda EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Like Someone in Love (2012) Jonathan F. Richards A quiet, conversational movie about love, deception, mistaken identity, seeming and being, and the vague ominous shadow of violence that drifts in the background like a cold mist coiling at the edge of a garden. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Les Misérables (2012) Jonathan F. Richards The Hugo story is a cherished classic. But the execution here, in the hands of director Tom Hooper, who guided The King's Speech with such subtlety and grace, is garish, shrill, and breathtakingly over the top. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
The Impossible (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Despite fine work by Ms Watts, Mr. MacGregor, and the oldest boy (Tom Holland), and a remarkable orchestration of digital effects, the movie treads water, and never catches the wave. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
() Jonathan F. Richards Director Andrew Adamson and 3D visionary James Cameron manage a beautiful, if boring, spectacle built around an Alice-in-Wonderland story EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Caesar Must Die (2012) Jonathan F. Richards It's not exactly Julius Caesar the Movie, although it contains some of the most gripping, persuasive Shakespearean acting you'll see in a long time. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Beyond the Hills (2012) Jonathan F. Richards At two and a half somber hours, the movie sometimes requires the patience of holy vows to see it through. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Barrymore (2011) Jonathan F. Richards The role is an actor's dream, a smorgasbord of everything from songs and dirty limericks to classical soliloquies, and Plummer plays it to the hilt. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Anna Karenina (2012) Jonathan F. Richards A stunningly original vision that treads the border between triumph and disaster, and manages to keep miraculously to the side of the angels. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Jonathan F. Richards The truth that the movie invites us to take to heart is that a society that thinks a child is better off in an institution than in a loving parental environment is a society desperately in need of treatment. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Amour (2012) Jonathan F. Richards This is a picture that deserves to be seen. All it needs is an audience steeled to watch it. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Nair spins out a story that doubles as a psychological and a political thriller. The stakes rise, the tension mounts, the atmosphere grows incendiary, the air becomes hard to breathe. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
No (2012) Jonathan F. Richards It's Coke vs. Pepsi, with the fate and freedom of a nation to the winner. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Mud (2013) Jonathan F. Richards Mud is very cool, and McConaughey carves him with a sharp blade. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
The Great Gatsby (2013) Jonathan F. Richards Baz Luhrmann's movie rendering of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel is The Great Gatsby the way Jay Gatsby might have directed it. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
The Gatekeepers (2012) Jonathan F. Richards To a man, they sound a common theme - that the policy of Israel toward the Palestinians simply doesn't work. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner (2013) Jonathan F. Richards If you find André Gregory a charming and fascinating figure, this is an easy movie to like. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
At Any Price (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Dennis Quaid, in an inept, mugging performance, is Henry Whipple, a successful third generation Iowa farmer who works painfully hard at squeezing the charmin' as he glad-hands customers and closes deals at funerals with strangers. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's (2013) Jonathan F. Richards A parade of fashion designers gushing about the store as the pinnacle of their dreams, and a chorus of recession-proof conspicuous consumers culled from the population most likely to be taken out and lined up against a wall come the revolution. EDIT
Posted May 21, 2013
The Flat (2011) Jonathan F. Richards "When Arnon Goldfinger's 98-year-old grandmother died she left behind a lifetime of possessions. But it was the secrets she took with her that supply the haunting narrative of this thought-provoking documentary." EDIT
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Flatliners (1990) Jonathan F. Richards The Flat can indulge itself in passages that are no more interesting than your neighbors' travel slides, but it opens can after can of ethical worms. EDIT
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Hitchcock (2012) Jonathan F. Richards There are lapses in judgment, lapses in timing, lapses in artistry that keep reminding us that great moviemaking isn't as simple as it looks. Alfred Hitchcock knew that. EDIT
Posted Dec 10, 2012
3.5 Any Day Now (2012) Jonathan F. Richards A society that thinks a child is better off in an institution than in a caring, loving parental environment, whatever the sexes and sexual orientations of those parents, is a society desperately in need of treatment. EDIT
Posted Dec 10, 2012
The Sessions (2012) Jonathan F. Richards Hunt is superb, and fearless.Hawkes Is confined to the expression he can discover in his face, and in a voice thinned by the ravages of polio. EDIT
Posted Nov 20, 2012