Movie guide

Ratings and comments by David Sterritt and Monitor staff. Staff comments reflect the sometimes diverse views of at least three other moviegoers. Information on violence, drugs, sex/nudity, and profanity is compiled by the Monitor panel.

STAR RATINGS MEANING

**** Excellent *** Good ** Fair * Poor DUD The Worst

The Bridge (Not rated)

Directors: Gerard Depardieu, Fred Auburtin. With Gerard Depardieu, Carole Bouquet, Charles Berling. (92 min.)

Sterritt *** The gently told story of a married woman whose love affair with her husband's employer has considerable consequences for herself and her family. Sensitive acting and a detailed sense of location help distinguish this commendably modest production. The original French title is "Un Pont entre deux rives." In French with English subtitles

Men of Honor (R)

Director: George Tillman Jr. With Cuba Gooding Jr., Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron, Michael Rapaport. (127 min.)

Sterritt ** An old-fashioned melodrama inspired by the life of an African-American man who rose from a sharecropper's family in the segregated South to become a master Navy diver despite the bigotry he encountered in the newly integrated military. Gooding and De Niro bring their characters to vivid life despite the unsubtle screenplay and hyperactive music score.

Non-Stop (Not rated)

Director: Sabu. With Diamond Yukai, Tomoro Taguchi, Shinichi Tsutsumi. (82 min.)

Sterritt ** Three low-life men - a gangster, a bank robber, and a drug-abusing clerk - pursue one another down Tokyo streets until their brains are so scrambled they can hardly remember who's chasing whom and for what. This tragicomic tale doesn't have the supercharged brilliance of "Run Lola Run," which it occasionally resembles, but it's certainly fast-moving and action fans should enjoy it. In Japanese with English subtitles

Red Planet (PG-13)

Director: Antony Hoffman. With Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmer, Carrie Anne Moss, Terence Stamp. (110 min.)

Sterritt * Astronauts visit Mars in 2050 to find out why Earth's preparations for colonizing the planet have mysteriously failed, but an emergency landing wrecks their plans, deluging them with deadly threats. The screenplay spices its science-fiction cliches with occasional pop-theology cliches, but what the filmmakers really care about is creepy-crawly aliens and a runaway robot that looks like a dog and acts like a ninja warrior. In short, the picture crash-lands as disastrously as the heroes and never quite recovers its wits.

Restless (Not rated)

Director: Jule Gilfillan. With Catherine Kellner, David Wu, Sarita Choudhury, Geng Le, Josh Lucas. (98 min.)

Sterritt ** A young American woman seeks adventure and romance in China, where her acquaintances include a Chinese-American man who's scarcely more at home in Beijing than she is. The story is likable if not memorable, and the Chinese settings lend the basically ordinary plot a touch of novelty. In English and Mandarin with English subtitles

Suzhou River (Not rated)

Director: Lou Ye. With Zhou Xun, Jia Hongsheng, Nai An, Yao Anlian, Hua Zhongkai. (83 min.)

Sterritt *** A young man finds himself in mysterious waters when he enters a kidnapping scheme, falls in love with the victim, loses her in a moment of violence, and becomes fixated on a young woman who may or not be not be his vanished lover. Adding more layers to the story is the fact that it's narrated by a videomaker who might have lived these events, or might be spinning them from his imagination even as we watch them. Clearly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece "Vertigo," this offbeat Chinese production is at once an innovative art film, a traditional suspense yarn, and a moody voyage through Shanghai's gritty back roads. In Mandarin with English subtitles

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