2007 / James Wan > In his first foray out of the horror genre, the director of the original Saw takes considerable missteps in portraying a revenge-minded father who’s just seen his son brutally murdered. Though Kevin Bacon puts in an adept effort considering the material, the character evolution is weak and oddly paced. In a film such as this, if you plan on taking your work seriously and not simply using it as a method of violence exploitation, you need a foundation on which to base the spillage of the blood on. However, Wan negates any sort of rationale for what happens, making plot decisions that are muddled and hysterical. At the end, there’s an attempt at teaching the moral behind the futility of revenge, but it’s too little, too obvious and too late.

2007 / Steve Buscemi > Even at 80 minutes long, Interview tests your patience over and over until you realize the film is actually a Sienna Miller biopic that Steve Buscemi made so he could make out with her. And while that could be considered a legitimate reason in some circles, the sheer pain of having to witness an unending conversation that continuously assaults the intelligence all but nullifies any reason for the film’s existence. Let’s hope the rest of the trilogy isn’t so weak.

2007 / Robert Ben Garant > As silly as it sounds, the idea of Dan Fogler making out with Maggie Q takes Balls of Fury two full notches down on the totem pole of love. In theory, there wasn’t much that could go wrong with a parody of Enter the Dragon starring Christopher Walken and ping pong, but the show quickly runs out of meat and starts packing the minutes with unremarkable filler that stretches thin by the climactic sequences. There are some good moments, though better fit to be viewed as clips on YouTube, not with full attention in front of the screen.

2007 / Neil Jordan > It’d be one thing if the moral dilemma was abrasive or tactless, but The Brave One somehow manages to turn the inherent tension necessary in a film such as this into a bit of a snoozefest. Jordan’s attempt to re-wrap the revenge genre fails as there’s too much being slapped together to create some greater meaning. Ultimately, much of the film is simply conventional—Not to mention that the whole bit is a minor personal attack on the borough of Manhattan.

2007 / David Wain > The Stella boys are pretty hit and miss: Wet Hot American Summer was fun and quirky, though far from brilliant. The Baxter had a sort of undeniable charm that kept it interesting. But The Ten and its gimmick of playing individually upon Moses’ commandments gets old a bit too quick. Most of the stories lose steam when one realizes that they really don’t go anywhere: They amuse briefly before simply becoming an obstacle until the next story. How much it reverberates simply depends on how much of the Stella comedy you can appreciate without thinking if its all a bunch of inside jokes.

2007 / Peter Berg > Up until The Kingdom, Berg had quietly been making his mark on the directorial front. Very Bad Things is an often overlooked, underrated black comedy, and Friday Night Lights is undoubtedly one of the finest sports films of all-time. However, in his foray into the action/drama (as opposed to the action/comedy buddy flick The Rundown), he stumbles over a few heavy-handed messages and a fairly insulting foundation: Jamie Foxx and his FBI crew land in Saudi Arabia to investigate a civilian bombing on international soil as if the Saudi themselves are absolutely incapable of such. This type of convenience in the script is downright silly, but it doesn’t stop there. The central conflict finds a magical solution at the buzzer, though Berg does add a couple of rather nice touches to make us pay attention. The Kingdom is not horrible, but it’s shallow and treads thinly on deep water that could have used some further exploration.