In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

it was a crazy time in france , what with the french revolution right around the corner .
king louis xv would soon die , and his son would become king louis xvi .
such is the setting for beaumarchais : the scoundrel about the controversial playwright , spy and playboy pierre - augustin caron de beaumarchais .
beaumarchais was the author of the plays , " the barber of seville " and " the marriage of figaro .
"
today people think of them as quaint and harmless operas , but , back in 1773 when the movie takes place , they were so scandalous that beaumarchais was thrown into prison more than once .
the movie beaumarchais : the scoundrel takes a light - hearted approach to its subject , resulting in an inviting motion picture .
one of france 's most expensive productions ever , the movie was a huge hit when it opened there last year .
now in theatrical release in the united states , it eschews the seriousness of most art house films with a romping good story .
the secret of the film 's success , other than the lavishness of sylvie de segonzac 's costumes , has to be the performance by fabrice luchini as beaumarchais .
with his glistening eyes and his infectious smile , he mesmerizes the camera and the audience .
his wry little lips seem always to hint at some unspoken deviousness he is planning .
in a land where court intrigue determines one 's destiny , constant scheming was a way of life for the aristocracy .
as our story starts , we learn that beaumarchais has bought himself a judgeship .
into his court comes a member of the nobility demanding an immediate sword fight .
beaumarchais , who has been having an affair with the man 's wife , makes him wait until the current case on the docket is decided .
that over with , the fight is on .
with luchini 's charisma , it is hard to root for anyone other than him .
audiences may remember him from the marvelous colonel chabert , in which he played the attorney .
although he does not have half of the good looks of his assistant gudin , played by manuel blanc , he dazzles the women and the viewers with his grace and style .
michael epp 's
warm and intimate cinematography provides a nice accompaniment to jean - marc kerdelhue 's lush but realistic looking sets .
jean - claude petit 's music , especially the hauntingly lovely flute solos , make for an enchanting time at the movies .
director jean - claude brisville , who wrote the script along with edouard molinaro , fleshed out a play by sacha guitry which , according to the press notes , was just a series of historic vignettes .
the disorganization of the play still comes through at some points in the movie , but the actors smooth it over with their good - hearted style .
typical of the scenes that come out of nowhere is the one in which a rotund benjamin franklin appears in a large pot of hot water , taking his bath .
one episode has beaumarchais working with a renegade spy who may or may not be a man .
another has beaumarchais using his personal fortune to aid the american revolution .
all of this may sound like a dull historical drama , but it is anything
but .
the story plays more like theater of the absurd than a movie based on historical facts .
the radiantly lovely sandrine kiberlain plays marie - therese , the real love of beaumarchais 's life .
but he is so likable that members of the audience may want to compete with her for him .
still , with his beguiling smile , one can never quite be sure if you should trust him .
the movie , on the other hand , can be trusted to deliver a high old time .
beaumarchais : the scoundrel runs 1 : 41 .
it is in french with english subtitles .
the film is not rated but would be an r for some nudity and sex , and should be fine for most teenagers .
P

capsule : a ham - handed and over / underwritten morality play masquerading as entertainment ,
so muddled it does n't even know what it 's really advocating , if anything .
a time to kill has been hailed as the best of the grisham adaptations , and it 's easy to see why
: it presents a strong , almost rancorously so , story ; it is full of good actors ( samuel l .
jackson , matthew mcconaughey , sandra bullock , kevin spacey , charles dutton ) ; and
it 's ostensibly about some important social issue that we 're all tangling with .
it is not , however , a good movie , and all of the reasons i 've listed above have something to do with why .
right from the beginning , the movie is dead - set on stacking its deck as thoroughly and unrepentantly as possible .
a pair of redneck whites , boozed and drugged out of their minds , kidnap a young black girl , abuse and rape her horribly , and leave her for dead .
after their arrest , their father ( jackson ) takes an assault rifle and guns them down on the way to trial .
mcconaughey is then drafted in as his lawyer , and the rest is somehow strangely predictable courtoom movie dramatics .
the acting is not quite what it should be , given the cast we have .
sandra bullock ( who is a good actress but not a serious one ) looks clueless ; spacey 's accent switches itself on and off at random ( and he 's given a totally thankless role to play as well , a role without an iota of depth ) ; and mcconaughey 's role is stamped from the cardboard back of a cereal box .
the most memorable role is donald sutherland 's , and his is a bit part .
i always consider it an index of a movie 's desperation when it is able to present shocking and outlandish events , and somehow not have them generate an ounce of impact .
there is one scene -- a riot outside the courtroom -- that should have created incredible tension , but winds up playing out like a textbook exercise on how not to deploy a scene like this .
because the movie does n't know what it 's really about ,
it * ca n't * generate any genuine tension , and so it has to artifically inject tension through clumsy plotting .
one of the ways it does this is by throwing in a whole subplot about a bunch of vicious kkk cross - burners -- which is tidied up so neatly that it borders on the nihilistic .
i was reminded of the despicable betrayed , which tried to tart up a fundamentally empty story by injecting vile , graphic acts of racism as little more than an attention - getter .
the movie immolates an enormous amount of its potential by making a few critical mistakes .
first of all , the jackson character is not hard to judge ; there 's no tension in his dilemma .
he 's self - admittedly guilty and should be sent to jail , no matter how moral his crusade .
the old saw about how no court in the land would convict him , if he was white , is supposed to be the underlying theme of the movie , but it 's never developed into an organic component of the story .
it just sort of floats around on top while the movie grinds away furiously with its plot mechanics .
another mistake is in motivational logic : by not having the two white thugs arraigned first -- or maybe tried and then dismissed from lack of evidence , say -- we have that much less empathy for jackson 's character .
i 'm probably supposed to think that just because he had his daughter raped , we are * automatically * supposed to feel empathy for him , but that 's precisely the kind of facile thinking that makes real justice impossible .
( see the virgin spring for more on that note . )
is jackson 's character then simply insane ?
that prospect is n't given terribly serious treatment either .
one of the most aggravating things about coutroom movies is how little they seem to know about how the law works , or how lawyers get their information .
mcconaughey 's character makes an important slipup late in the movie , when one of his witnesses turns out to have been convicted of a capital offense .
how did the prosecution get this information ?
how come he did n't get it ?
the whole way these questions get handled are symptomatic of the movie 's way of dealing with complex legal and moral questions in cheap screenwriterly slam - bang fashion .
this is the biggest problem : the movie is n't about jackson 's character , or his dilemma , or this case , or any of its ( frequently interesting despite the porcine writing and direction ) characters .
it 's not ultimately about anything at all , except its stupid geared - down plot , which inches onwards in one unremarkable scene after another towards a totally contrived ending .
at two and a half hours , the movie is overlong and drastically overwritten
: there 's endless stuff about things which ultimately add up to nothing , and no writing about the material that should really matter .
it 's all handwaving .
the closing argument are also sneaky and underhanded , and underscored my suspicion that the movie is manipulative and unfair .
it 's not easy to make a movie about something .
the other day i saw kurosawa 's phenomenal rashomon , a movie that is really about the way people deal with truth and reality ( or do n't ) .
a time to kill is as empty and ponderous a movie as i 've seen in a long time .
N

die hard 2 is an altogether unfortunate fiasco , inferior to the original in every respect .
place the blame squarely on the shoulders of steven de souza and doug richardson , who wrote the film 's pathetic screenplay .
every line of dialogue reeks of either smarmy sap or forced humor .
the plot is altogether implausible ; the convoluted story line involves a band of terrorists who take over dulles airport and shut down the control tower , leaving a dozen planes stranded in the air waiting to land .
the film has zero credibility , and all of the characters come off as cliched , cardboard cut - outs .
so much for the script .
how about the action ?
well , let 's put it this way : director renny harlin could learn a few things from john mctiernan , who directed the original , as well as the hunt for red october and predator --
all standouts for their hair - raising suspense .
by contrast , harlin does n't have a clue when it comes to choreographing action , and consequently , die hard 2 never picks up steam .
die harder is impossible to take seriously even for a minute .
in fact , the movie often seems deliberately campy , and it almost reaches the threshold of being so bad
it 's good .
you do laugh , but you laugh at the film , not with it .
die hard 2 should have never been cleared for takeoff .

N