Laitakaupungin valot 2006

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Kaurismaki creates some beautiful frames, carefully composing his affectless characters against the rooms' colors, but there's something wrong with your story when people are upstaged by the decor. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: Kaurismaki is self-consciously tapping into the raw pathos of an earlier time in cinema (the pain and loss that often accompanied Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp, for example). The idea works, though it is finally wearing. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Lights In The Dusk plays out in the expected Kaurismaki style, with flavorful musical interludes, great affection for the city's outcasts, and lots of bleakness chased by the faintest sliver of hope. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: It's a deceptively satisfying, almost magical achievement, like being stranded in a desert yet never going thirsty. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: The distance Kaurismki creates belies his deeply humanistic streak. He engages characters in the direst of situations not to see them suffer but to search for hope. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: There's great music, an excellent dog, and that indescribable Kaurismaki tension between misery and a cosmic joke. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: If you're new to Kaurismaki, the film will make you a fan. If you've seen everything else he's ever done, the comedy will confirm your commitment. Read more

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: The director's existential sarcasm is muted here. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: So stylized and slow-moving (even at a spare 75 minutes) that you may have trouble adapting to its hypnotic rhythms -- but if you can, there are sumptuous visual rewards to be found, plus the faintest emotional uptick right at the end. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Kaurismaki's delightfully delicate cautionary fable charts his unassuming hero's descent into an unforeseen nightmare of deceit and violence with a characteristically low-key blend of humane compassion and deadpan mordant humour. Read more

Hank Sartin, Time Out: Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: An amiable but very undercooked noirish fable about a security guard done wrong by a femme fatale. Read more

Nathan Lee, Village Voice: Kaurismaki has given us no special reason to revisit his coy, claustrophobic universe. Read more