THE PROPOSAL - over-styled, under-powered rom-com

Anne Fletcher, of 27 DRESSES and STEP UP fame, delivers a high-concept but low-on-laughs "romantic comedy". The big concept takes a career-bitch (Sandra Bullock) who fakes an engagement to her younger executive assistant (Ryan Reynolds). She wants to get a visa to the US; he wants to be promoted to editor. Over a weekend in Alaska to visit his parents they are meant to fall in love with each other. Problem is, there is zero chemistry between the two. It just looks like a middle-aged woman, with too much Botox and far too over-styled, macking onto a much younger guy. I didn't buy the whole "I'm a tortured rich-kid" dynamic with the guy. I didn't buy the whole "I'm a power-bitch because my parents died" excuse for the woman. And I really didn't buy the wannabe schmaltzy ending. For falling-in-love over a family country-house weekend, check out the far superior in DAN IN REAL LIFE. And for a more credible and affecting immigration set-up, check out the old Andie McDowell/Depardieu classic, GREEN CARD.

THE PROPOSAL is on release in the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, Georgia, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, New Zealand, Russia, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Turkey, Egypt, Sweden, Greece, Bulgaria, Argentina, Portugal, Ukraine, Brazil, Spain and Estonia. It opens later in July in Iceland and Germany. It opens in August in Malaysia, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Singapore and the Czech Republic. It opens in September in Italy, Hong Kong and France. It opens in Japan on October 16th.

Flaky ending aside, THE BRAVE ONE is pretty decent

THE BRAVE ONE is more intelligent and more patient than your average revenge thriller. Usually these flicks take a more or less explicit and malicious pleasure in the protagonist beating the crap out of the bad guy. THE BRAVE ONE distinguishes itself by not lingering over the violence at all. Jodie Foster plays a DJ whose fiance is killed by a bunch of thuggish happy-slappers and resorts to killing bad guys in an effort to regain control. The heart of the film is her relationship with the cop who is investigating the case. He's portrayed by Terrence Howard in yet another stand-out performance. The crux of the piece is whether or not Howard's character will have the fortitude to shop the women he knows is guilty of murdering people he knows are beyond the grasp of the justice system he believes in. The film oozes class. The performances are top notch; the camera-work is penetrating; the characters believable....that is, until the final reel. Still, despite the flaky ending, it's great to see the revenge thriller rescued from the trash-can.

THE BRAVE ONE played Toronto 2007 and is on release in the USA, Indonesia, the Philippines, Canada, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Spain, the UK, Slovenia and Denmark. It opens in Egypt, Australia, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Finland, Iceland and Lithuania next weekend. It opens in Czech Republic and Hungary on October 18th, in Argentina on October 25th, in Japan, Slovakia and Brazil on November 2nd.