Rick

This impressive - and utterly depressing - feature debut is another in the current rush of testaments to the power of the new corporation to suck the goodness from its employees and all who have the misfortune to enter its orbit.

If you require that you "like" a movie, then Rick is not for you, because there is nothing likable about it. It's rotten to the core and right down to the end. But if you find that such extremes can be fascinating, then the movie may cheer you, not because it is happy, but because it goes for broke.

A deliciously bitter tale of lust and betrayal.

It’s a frequently riveting gambit, and the actors give it their all. However, the mood and the stylized camerawork make the proceedings too arch to completely succeed.

Feels like it was written by an oddball artist-temp type with an ax to grind - which, as it happens, it was.

Rick (Bill Pullman) is an embittered cad who fails to earn the audience's sympathy, so the film falls short of its source's tragic dimensions. That aside, Daniel Handler's script and Curtiss Clayton's direction hit all the right notes, especially in the final act.

A noxious little tale of Wall Street types whose amorality knows no limit, Rick takes smarmy knowingness to ludicrous extremes.