Class Action: In this high-concept legal thriller, directed by Michael Apted, Gene Hackman plays a flamboyant lawyer who specializes in civil-liberties and consumer-advocacy cases, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays his daughter, an ambitious associate in a slick corporate-law firm. The script-by Carolyn Shelby, Christopher Ames, and Samantha Shad-contrives to pit the father and the daughter against each other in a negligence suit against an auto manufacturer. Sparks, both personal and professional, are meant to fly, but the Hollywood engineers who designed this piece of product have cut a few too many corners: the thriller plotting is predictable, the family drama is broad and sentimental, and the connections between them are facile. Yet Hackman and Mastrantonio somehow manage to impart lifelike rhythms to their scenes together: their skill keeps this rickety contraption from stalling completely. -Terrence Rafferty Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Man Trouble: In this wild, romantic comedy with a decidedly offbeat sense of humor, Jack Nicholson stars as Harry, a wisecracking con-man who owns a guard dog agency. When a singer (Ellen Barkin) seeks his aid after her house is burglarized, Harry inadvertently makes them the target of hit men, an underworld mob boss (Harry Dean Stanton) and Joan's eccentric sister (Beverly D'Angelo) and puts them at the mercy of Harry's out-of-control canines.