Drama

Director Ben Ramsey and writer Michael Andrews team for this martial arts action thriller concerning a mysterious drifter (Michael Jai White) who becomes ensnared in the seedy world of underground street fighting. In the back alleys of Los Angeles, life is cheap and to go against the grain is to take on the most powerful criminal organization on the West Coast. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A Senegalese taxi driver living in Winston-Salem, NC, makes the decision to befriend a depressive passenger with a tragic plan in director Ramin Bahrani's deeply humanistic drama. Solo (Souléymane Sy Savané) is a cab driver whose believes that everyone should be engaged and concerned with one another, and thus lacks the self-conscious view of relationships so prevalent in North American society. When a 70-year-old passenger named William (Red West) hails Solo's cab and books him for another ride in two weeks during the course of his ride, it quickly becomes apparent over the course of their negotiation that the man isn't planning to return from his impending trip. Troubled at the thought of what his passenger has planned, Solo does his best to strike up a friendship and convince William to reconsider. But William harbors a pain more deep-rooted than Solo first senses, displaying a visible desire for privacy that immediately putts him at odds with the genuinely concerned cab driver. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The silent owner of a prominent Atlanta restaurant toils away in anonymity as the busboy and dishwasher in order to atone for a sin he committed earlier in life in this drama from director Antonia "Kid" Curry. Chance is an elderly gentleman who has made a fortune as the silent owner of a popular Atlanta restaurant, but you wouldn't know it to look at him. For the past forty years, Chance has worked as a dishwasher and busboy at the restaurant, quietly enduring the ridicule and criticism of his fellow coworkers as a means of self-punishment for an early-life sin. One day, Chance dies suddenly and unexpectedly. But Chance has no friends or family to speak of, so who will inherit his sizable fortune? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Not a sequel to Richard Harris' A Man Called Horse as is sometime alleged, 1971's Man in the Wilderness nonetheless bears a marked resemblance to that earlier film. Star Harris plays a trapper who joins a Northwest Territory expeditionary group. Left for dead after running afoul of a grizzly bear, Harris struggles to regain his strength and exact vengeance against John Huston, the man who deserted him. Flashbacks reveal who Harris is and how he's come to this. Man in the Wilderness alternates between a blood-spattered retribution tale and a gutsy one-man show for frostbitten Richard Harris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The true story of an athlete who achieved his greatest success against the most daunting odds of his life is brought to the screen in this historical drama. In the 1920s, James Braddock (Russell Crowe) from Bergen, NJ, was a promising contender in professional boxing; he had strength, spirit, and tenacity, but the combination of a serious hand injury and a 1929 defeat in a bout with light heavyweight champ Tommy Loughran sent his career into a serious tailspin. As Braddock's career in the ring dried up, the Great Depression put a stake through the heart of America's economy, and Braddock found himself working at the New York docks for pitiful wages as he tried to support his wife, Mae (Renée Zellweger), and three children. Desperate for money, Braddock turned to his former trainer and manager Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti), who was unexpectedly able to scare up a bout for him, battling John Griffin at Madison Square Garden. While conventional wisdom had it that Braddock was too old, out of shape, and out of practice to have any chance of winning, he defeated Griffin, and continued beating his opponents with a powerful left hook that had been intensified by years of punishing dock work. In a nation desperate for good news, Braddock's surprising comeback became a tonic to struggling workers and unemployed people, and all eyes were on Braddock when in 1935 he took on powerful heavyweight champion Max Baer (Craig Bierko) in what was both literally and figuratively the fight of his life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide