Attempting to capture the screwball essence of the old-school suspense-comedy ... Lawrence Michael Levine's flighty "Wild Canaries" lacks the filmmaking discipline required to pay effective homage.

| Mar 5, 2015

Cute or presumptuous? It's your call where "Wild Canaries" is concerned.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 5, 2015

The genre play is an interesting take on what has become a clich genre of Brooklyn relationship dramedy. But unfortunately, the execution is bungled along the way, and the film ends up feeling like not quite one thing and not quite the other.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 28, 2015

It offers an unpredictable ride that's kind of fun, or at least sporadically simulates fun.

| Feb 27, 2015

It's evident that the film is largely a lark, that Levin is having fun creating comic sparks by smashing a murder mystery together with a group of self-centered detectives, plot details be damned.

| Feb 26, 2015

Despite an appealing cast, though, neither comedy nor suspense really takes flight until very near the end, largely due to a script that isn't equal to the filmmakers' enthusiasm.

| Feb 25, 2015

At its core, Wild Canaries is a reminder that relationships require a sense of adventure, and maybe a little mystery, to keep the magic alive. Indie comedies, as the film proves, benefit from the same.

| Original Score: B+ | Feb 25, 2015

On paper, "Wild Canaries" sounds like it has all the ingredients for a reasonably diverting comedy, but they just never quite pull together into a cohesive or entertaining whole.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 25, 2015

Setting this pair of squirrelly, suspicious minds loose on matters of love and death, Mr. Levine spins a caper that wins you over more through tenacity than through originality.

| Feb 24, 2015

It's rare for a film that feels this loose to be populated by men and women so precisely constructed that they could've been pulled right out of a novel.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 24, 2015

Dusting off the kind of screwball whodunit that the Thin Man series once perfected, this update cleverly clashes old genre tropes against the backdrop of modern Brooklyn.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 23, 2015

Lawrence Michael Levine's film occupies a sweet spot between the self-aware and taut.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 22, 2015

As performers, Levine and Takal are both practiced and casual; as a director, Levine displays a sharp comedic touch; the result is self-deprecating and self-revealing.

| Feb 16, 2015

In spite of the constant activity, there's not a whole lot going on, but it's still a fun place to visit.

| Original Score: B | Feb 13, 2015

Levine's script does a clever job of keeping numerous balls in the air over the taut 99-minute running time, and the writer is especially good at using the information he feeds us in unexpectedly resourceful, double-edged ways.

| Feb 13, 2015

If this were the 1930s, the world would soon be clamoring for these two to star together in another picture. The least we can hope for is a sequel.

| Jun 17, 2014