I remember how many people were caught totally off guard by Ricky Gervais’s “The Invention of Lying” (2009), a film with a simple premise about a man who could lie in a world where nobody else could, when it suddenly became a vicious condemnation of religion. Gervais’s character, the liar, invented the concept of a “Man in the Sky” who would take good people to an afterlife if they followed “ten rules.”

Better movies are coming in the next couple of weeks, is what I kept repeating to myself as I sat through “Deadfall," an incredibly average thriller about people with father issues. Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde play Addison and Liza, two siblings who forged a very deep bond with one another during their young years when they’re alcoholic father put them through hell. Now they’re casino robbers on the run in the blizzard-laden count-

Siblings Addison (Eric Bana) and Liza (Olivia Wilde) are on […]

In 1994 Luc Besson directed “The Professional,” a stark drama […]