Armin Mueller-stahl

A master at the ancient art of phantom punching, Cronenberg's examination of the Russian mafia's sex trade, currently flourishing in London, doesn't hit you till you're a good quarter mile out of the theater, as you're still contemplating Viggo Mortensen's slicked-back hairdo. Like a cccwolf right before the hunt, Mortensen snarls and calmly stalks as Nikolai, the driver for a sect of the elusive crime syndicate Vory V Zakone, a specter that arose from the ashes of Stalin's work camps. Nikolai works for Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and Semyon's volatile son Kirill (Vincent Cassel), taking care of their transportation and their criminal refuse. When Nikolai snaps off the fingers of a corpse, he asks Kirill and his business associate Azim (Mina E. Mina) to leave... but the audience is allowed to stay.

Continue reading: Eastern Promises Review

This is our loss and Australia's gain, because Shine comes off as one of the upper-echelon films of the year, an ambitious and unflinching look at that country's David Helfgott, a prodigy of a pianist driven insane by his father, only to emerge again after 20 years of institutionalization.

Continue reading: Shine Review

Ed Harris is an amazingly honest actor. Whether he's playing a megamaniacal military rogue (like in "The Rock"), an egomaniacal TV producer ("The Truman Show") or an everyday dad ("Stepmom"), he so fully understands his characters' foibles and drives that he taps right into the cores of their beings.

It's not so much that he's a chameleon who disappears into his parts, as it is that he visibly enjoys becoming the people he plays. There is a rapture in the way he performs that is just a joy to watch.

In the complex, compelling and intimate "The Third Miracle," Harris plays Father Frank Moore, a disillusioned Catholic priest who debunks miracle claims for the church -- a man whose psyche has become scarred with hesitancy and regret after years of shooting holes in people's beliefs.

Continue reading: The Third Miracle Review