The movie is about a veteran investigative reporter, Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), who tried and succeeded in uncovering the truth behind the suicide of the mistress of his friend, Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck). Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) is an internet blogger hired by McAffrey’s boss (Helen Mirren) and asked McAffrey to show her the ropes. As they dug deeper into the apparent suicide, they discover facts that led them to believe that it was murder instead.

State of Play has some political overtones and it made the movie more interesting. It also turned out that McAffrey is close not only with the congressman but also with his wife Anne (Robin Wright), who was his girlfriend during their college. But she got nothing to do with the murder so let’s forget about her for a while.

Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe): The newspaper article he types reads: Three Deaths Tied to Gulf War Army Associate New evidence links Rep. Stephen Collins with the suspect in the killings of three people, including Sonia baker, the congressman’s political researcher. When confronted by the Washington Globe with information tying him to suspect Robert Bingham, Collins admitted he had directed his former Army associate to follow Baker after learning that she was secretly on the payroll of military contractor PointCorp. Collins, the chairman of the committee investigating PointCorp’s government deals, said he authorized Bingham only “to observe” Baker. He said he never intended for her to be harmed. “He just did it,” Collins said of Bingham. “He seemed more upset about what she was doing than I was.” When police went to arrest Bingham at his Northern Virginia apartment last night, he was found dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A rifle was next to his body. Investigators said they believe Bingham pushed Baker to her death under a Metro train earlier this week and later shot two witnesses, Deshaun Stagg and Vernon Sando, to silence them.

Russell Crowe is a guy I always love to hate but he did a pretty decent job in State of Play. Ben Affleck was perfect as a congressman with big political aspiration. Rachel McAdams held her ground against the two male leads. Jason Bateman played a pivotal role as a big shot PR guy that knew too much.

State of Play is one of the suspenseful thrillers I’ve seen in recent times. It provided all the right twists that made it unpredictable. With all the political scandals we read in the news these days, State of Play provides a very frightful scenario.

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is an unpopular high school student who decided to become a superhero even though he has neither special powers nor abilities. So he dons a green spandex suit and becomes Kick-Ass.

Okay, so the main hero Kick-Ass pretty much had his ass kicked everytime he tried to help someone out. He provided the comedic relief as he tried to save the world but end up getting beaten up. It’s a good thing that he’s not the only superhero in town.

Enter Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), who is probably the best ever little person I’ve seen in a movie; beating Yoda by just a few punches. She commands the viewer’s attention whenever she’s on screen. I bet she can beat the hell out of GoGo Yubari in a death match. Without Hit Girl, Kick-Ass will just be another superhero movie. Hit Girl made it into a great one.

Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse): Yeah, that’s right! We’re superheroes! You love us!

Superbad’s McLovin Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays an important role in Kick-Ass. Chris D’Amico went from being an annoyance into one of the most important characters in the movie. His life is complicated being a son of a crime lord who wants to be a superhero as well.

The pacing of Kick-Ass was perfect. There were no dead spots and provided all the right elements to make it interesting all throughout its runtime. It had the correct mixture of teen angst, bloody violence, and comedy.

Kick-Ass is not for everyone, especially those who don’t like violence and gore. If you like Kill Bill and Superbad then you’ll definitely love this one. I didn’t know that a foul-mouth preteen girl can make such an impact that contributed to this movie’s greatness.

The pace of Tenderness is slow but the strong emotions of the characters make up for it. It tried to be a deep, meaningful movie with the theme of change or the lack of it. In a way it succeeded because I felt nothing changed during the course of the movie.

Tenderness has a few questions left unanswered. So we learned that Eric killed his parents and a girl after raping her. Lori is stalking him because she saw what he did and was thrilled by it. But why is the detective so consumed in putting him back in jail? And how is his comatose wife relevant to the story? The movie didn’t even tell us why she’s in the hospital in the first place. Maybe the answers are found in the book by Robert Cormier where the movie was based on. But after watching Tenderness, I won’t put it on my priority list.

I’m not much of a Russell Crowe fan and Tenderness will not convince me to be one. His portrayal of the detective was flat and it didn’t help that the character’s lone mission throughout the movie was to pin down Eric.

Tenderness can be likened to a steamroller, heavy and slow. It wouldn’t keep you on the edge of your seat. The ending was predictable. C’mon, even the detective knew that Eric will commit a mistake sooner or later. It didn’t matter that Lori’s death was an accident and Eric tried to save her.

Tenderness is for Russell Crowe fans. Since I’m not a fan, I don’t know why I saw it in the first place. If you see this now playing on cable, change the channel.

The Taking of Pelham 123 started as an ordinary day for New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington). Little did he know that his job title will also include hostage negotiator when Ryder (John Travolta) takes over a train during his shift and holds its passengers hostage until the city pays him $10 million.

As expected, Washington and Travolta delivered stellar performances but The Taking of Pelham 123 still dragged slowly as it progressed to the expected ending. Travolta’s over-acting was balanced by Washington’s subtle performance. It is a character-driven movie but the character development was weak. There’s no tension that can grip the audience and make them sit on the edge of their seats.

Ryder (John Travolta): You’re my goddamn hero.

So how can a subway employee who is being investigated for taking a bribe become a hero in the end? Ryder doesn’t want to go back to jail and he gave Garber no choice but to shoot him. That’s how Garber got his life back. I want to get the time I used to watch this movie back please.

The Taking of Pelham 123 is a letdown with all its flaws and its unrealistic ending. It does have entertaining action scenes but it doesn’t change the fact that the movie sucked. It was just after watching the movie that I found out that it was a remake and there are people telling me that the original is a hundred times better than this one. Now that’s one movie I got to see.

There are lots of questions with regards to The Steam Experiment. Are the people trapped in the steam room still alive or dead? And is the whole scenario just made up or reality? What I do know is that this is one thriller that should be avoided at all costs.

Jimmy thinks that the Mayans were right and that the world will end in 2012 due to global warming. He set up this experiment to illustrate how humans will react when that time comes. The acting was decent with some nudity on the side but the movie was boring.

Catherine (Megan Brown): You don’t control him anymore. He controls you. Kill him and come home. I love you.

The writer wanted to provide a smart twist in the end but it only added to the frustration. As it turns out, the doctor and his wife were part of the group trapped in the steam room and that they’re in cahoots with Jimmy in this experiment.

I blamed this travesty called The Steam Experiment to poor writing. Jimmy is said to be brilliant but deranged scientist and he proclaimed that he’s light-years ahead of this time. Hmmm… How can time be measured in light years when it’s a measure of distance?

The Steam Experiment is a sleep-worthy movie. The Mayans forgot to warn us about this one. I wouldn’t recommend this movie even if it’s the only movie after 2012.

Danny is coaxed by Suzy (Tahyna Tozzi) to spy on the people in their neighborhood. She has a special interest in the lady of Number 46, Jennifer (Asher Keddie). She wants to know why Jennifer is constantly looking through the curtains of her front window.

The cinematography is beautiful. The cast did an impressive job to make Beautiful enjoyable. It is interesting to see Asher Keddie and Tahyna Tozzi together again after last year’s X-men Origins: Wolverine, although they filmed Beautiful first. Maybe they share the same agent. Peta Wilson as Danny’s step-mother also meted out a noteworthy performance in this one.

Beautiful is predictable and yet it has an open ending. After Danny and Suzy found out that Jennifer is waiting for her ex-con lover, Suzy faked her own kidnapping and made Danny rush towards Number 46 because he thought that she’s there. Danny didn’t find Suzy there but he accidentally killed the both Jennifer and her lover. Danny’s dad, who is a cop, first arrives at the scene and told Danny to go home. After Danny is gone, his father shot himself in the head.

Beautiful’s ending is not pretty but it was fine. There were loose ends left for the audience to interpret for themselves. Some compare the movie to American Beauty and Donnie Darko, saying that Beautiful is a cheap imitation but I don’t think it deserves the bad press it’s getting. The pace is slow, which built the right atmosphere for the thriller to thrive on. If you’re looking for a fast-faced thriller then this is not for you.

Playing the girl with multiple personalities is Lacey Chabert.  She’s the only reason why you should even consider watching this movie.  She did a good job in keeping me awake throughout the movie.  Once her character is not on the scene, I found myself yawning.

I would like to commend The Lost for its unpredictable ending.  It turns out that Lacey Chabert was not suffering from multiple personalities but she was possessed by the spirits of girls killed by the same killer.  I suspected that the killer was the professor or his son but it turns out that the killer was Kevin himself.

The Lost made me lost precious time that I could have used to play NBA 2K10.  The story was interesting but the way it was interpreted was too boring for my liking.  Lacey Chabert deserves better movies than this.

Clive Owen is perfect for the part and he could have made a great Bond if he accepted the job.  Naomi Watts’ character was not that impressive and I guess that’s how it was made by the writers.  It is also refreshing to see a thriller where the male and female leads are not romantically involved with each other.

Maybe it helped that I didn’t know anything about it before watching the movie.  The International does have its flaws.  Some dialogues sounded contrived but it can be forgiven.  The Guggenheim scene alone can make up for all the imperfections in the film.

Louis Salinger (Clive Owen): Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn…  I’m the one you burn.

Just when you thought The International became predictable, things began to falter.  Salinger wasn’t able to record incriminating evidence that would make IBBC arms deal a failure and would bring down the bank.  He somehow succeeded in his goal when Calvini’s hit man killed the bank head.

The International is full of tension that will leave its audience at the edge of their seats.  Go watch it if you’re looking for a good thriller.  It’s just a bonus to see a world class museum getting trashed in the process.

Elsewhere’s cinematography was good but one aspect it lacked was in the script department.  The plot was dumb and some parts of the movie were boring.  We’ve already seen the story done dozens of times before.  As a thriller, look for surprising twists in the plot elsewhere.

A perfect example of how stupid the writing in Elsewhere is when the two teens were going through the cornfield.  They were supposed to sneak their way towards the barn and yet they were using bright lanterns to light their way.

Minutes into Elsewhere and you’ll already have an inkling as to who the killer is and yes it was the creepy father of their co-worker.  There was a time when the writer wanted us to suspect his daughter but it failed miserably.  If I were you, I’ll go where the title tells you to be than watch this movie.

Duplicity relied on flashbacks to show the various twists in the plot.  And there were a lot of it.  Being double agents, trust is not their strong suit.  There are lots of back stabbing among them.   And even fake ones that might be confusing for some viewers if you don’t pay close attention to what’s happening  on the screen.

Ray Koval (Clive Owen): I think about you all the time.  I think about you even when you’re with me.  I look at you, I can’t stop looking at you.  I look at you, and I think,  “That woman…  That woman knows who I am and loves me anyway.”

You might think that Duplicity is a romantic comedy but it is a crime movie driven by the unpredictability of the story that makes the audience wonder what will come next.  Some are turned off by the slow pace in the beginning but it picks up around the time Ray and Claire meet again.

So what’s the big scheme? Well they thought that what they stole was the cure for baldness.  It was the perfect crime in their mind but in the end it turned out that Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), Claire’s boss, knew about their plan and orchestrated things without them knowing it.

Tully had this grand scheme to trick his competitor into believing he has something big coming out soon.  He planted everything and even came out with the fake formula.  Ray and Claire thought they are the king and queen but were just Tully’s pawns to shame his competitor.

Duplicity was fun to watch and I love the intricacy of the plot.  It might be full of flashbacks with the two characters delivering the same line that the characters made up as part of their plan but it is still enjoyable and I recommend it for those who love crime thrillers.