From AwardAnnals
Results of the Edgar Allan Poe Award® in the year 2005. For a ranked list of films, try an honor roll:
A Very Long Engagement
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
The film is set in France near the end of World War I in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisien halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl. It tells the story of this young woman’s relentless, moving and sometimes comic search for her fiancé, who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench into an almost-certain death in no-man’s land. What follows is an investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human heart.
Collateral
Michael Mann
Collateral offers a change of pace for Tom Cruise as a ruthless contract killer, but that’s just one of many reasons to recommend this well-crafted thriller. It’s from Michael Mann, after all, and the director’s stellar track record with crime thrillers (
Thief,
Manhunter, and especially
Heat) guarantees a rich combination of intelligent plotting, well-drawn characters, and escalating tension, beginning here when icy hit-man Vincent (Cruise) recruits cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him through a nocturnal tour of Los Angeles,…
I'm Not Scared
Gabriele Salvatores
This decidedly unorthodox and generally discomfiting thriller, directed by Academy Award winner Gabriele Salvatores (
Mediterraneo), is suffused with moral ambiguity yet manages to take a decisive point of view nonetheless. The film’s squirm-inducing plot unfolds gracefully, and Salvatores’ skill at character development enables him to capture the sympathy of viewers who might otherwise find the story too distasteful for enjoyment. The film’s predominant point of view is that of its ten-year-old protagonist, Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano), who discovers a…
Maria Full of Grace
Joshua Marston
(Drama) Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino), a bright, spirited 17-year old, lives with three generations of her family in a cramped house in rural Colombia. Desperate to leave her job stripping thorns from flowers in a rose plantation, Maria accepts a lucrative offer to transport packets of heroin—which she must swallow—to the United States. The ruthless world of international drug trafficking proves to be more than Maria bargained for as she becomes ultimately entangled with both drug cartels and immigration officials. The dramatic thriller builds toward a conclusion so powerful and revealing it could only be based on a thousand true stories.
The Bourne Supremacy
Paul Greengrass
Good enough to suggest long-term franchise potential,
The Bourne Supremacy is a thriller fans will appreciate for its well-crafted suspense, and for its triumph of competence over logic (or lack thereof). Picking up where
The Bourne Identity left off, the action begins when CIA assassin and partial amnesiac Jason Bourne (a role reprised with efficient intensity by Matt Damon) is framed for a murder in Berlin, setting off a chain reaction of pursuits involving CIA handlers (led by Joan Allen and the duplicitous Brian Cox, with Julia Stiles returning…
