It is hard to dislike director Garry Marshall’s 1996 feel-good comedy, in which Greg Kinnear stars as conman Tom Turner, who gets a job in the dead-letter department of the US Post Office, and decides to help the people who write to Santa, Elvis and God by replying to them. Naturally it isn’t long before the media finds out about this story.

The relentless fake optimism in the screenplay by Warren Leight and Ed Kaplan makes for a movie that’s a bit too bland and manipulative. But the feel-good factor is high enough to keep it likeable and the appealing Kinnear and the rest of a superior cast work hard to make it mildly good fun. Indeed, the skilful, warm-spirited performances are a major asset.

Hector Elizondo co-stars (as Vladek Vidov), as he does in every one of Marshall’s mo...

Director Tony Goldwyn’s 2001 romantic comedy stars Ashley Judd as Jane Goodale, a TV producer and talent scout of a popular daytime talk show, who is unexpectedly jilted by her boyfriend, the show’s dashing executive producer Ray (Greg Kinnear).

Jane then begins researching male behaviour to discover what makes men tick and uses her Casanova-like co-worker and house-sharer Eddie (Hugh Jackman) as a guinea pig. She writes a sexist column accusing all men of being cheaters, which gains her national fame.

Good acting by the strong, appealing cast and handsome filming lift a flatly written, shakily handled comedy, largely wasting its neat premise.

Judd is outstanding, while Jackman, Greg Kinnear, Marisa Tomei and Ellen Barkin are all excellent...

The Farrelly Brothers Peter and Bobby keep up their reputation for bad-taste comedy in the 2003 film Stuck on You by resurrecting their 12-year-old script about a pair of conjoined twins forced to share a life (‘we’re not Siamese twins, we’re American!’).

They run the Quikee Burger bar in West Coast America’s Martha’s Vineyard, till one day one of them, shy Bo (Matt Damon), talks the other, extrovert would-be actor Walt (Greg Kinnear), into going to Hollywood to become a star, and they find success and love after winning a job on Cher’s TV show.

Non-comedians Kinnear and Damon are not obvious casting as the contrasting twins, Walt and Bob...

Directors Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, the makers of Ice Age (2002), come up with another dazzlingly inventive and witty CGI animation in 2005.

Robin Williams voices the nutty robot Fender, who, with cute Cappy (Halle Berry), helps young inventor Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) stop a corporate baddie Rachet (Greg Kinnear) and prevent a demonic mother, Madame Gasket (Jim Broadbent!), hurling antique robots into a fiery furnace.

Though there’s a surprising shortage of gags (you want all lines to be like ‘it’s a mix of jazz and funk – called junk’) and robots aren’t ideal cartoon characters since their faces can’t change expression, it looks a treat, the voice cast gives suitably mechanical performances and it’s still wizard fun!

The impressive IMAX version is shown...

Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari reunite in 2000 after American Pie (1999) for a softer option.

Co-producer/writer/director Amy Heckerling’s movie is a mild, bitter-sweet teen romantic comedy. Biggs plays a hard-working, rural upstate hick-from-the-sticks, who comes to New York City for college. There he is mocked as a loser by his more sophisticated roommates (Zak Orth, Thomas Sadoski, Jimmi Simpson), who promptly oust him from their group. But Biggs finds true love when he helps a fellow student (Suvari) who tries to commit suicide while having a misbegotten affair with their caddish, married lecturer (Greg Kinnear).

A slimmed-down Biggs is quite charming in this often-appealing little movie, which is quietly enjoyable for all its shaky, off-colour moments...

Greg Kinnear stars as real-life American small-town preacher and father whose four-year-old son (Connor Corum) nearly dies of appendicitis in hospital but experiences an actual trip to Heaven, where he meets Jesus, a young version of his grandfather and even his stillborn sister.

The boy recovers, and bit by bit reveals his incredible story, offering various pieces of corroborations of it, speaking matter-of-factly about things he couldn’t possibly know, including things that happened before his birth. From Heaven he’s seen his father shouting at God in the hospital chapel while his mother distraught about him is in the waiting room.

Burpo and his wife (Kelly Reilly) are much troubled and it affects the pastor’s ability to do his job, leading church leaders (Thomas Haden Church, Mar...

Writer-director Randall Wallace’s 2002 release stars Mel Gibson, who arms up for this raw, gung-ho Vietnam War film, in which he stars as real-life Lt Col Hal Moore, who leads an American force into ‘Nam in 1965. The movie dramatises the Battle of Ia Drang on November 14 1965.

Dumped by helicopter onto a killing field called X-Ray, 400 Yanks are surrounded by 2000 North Vietnamese. The subsequent action is excitingly and credibly staged, with blood and guts spilled everywhere. But this flag-waving tale sees the conflict entirely from the US side, and, in the dramatic scenes, sentimentality, flag-waving and clichés replace subtlety and the truth.

Gibson is his usual stalwart, earnest self, and Barry Pepper scores a hit as Joe Galloway, an eager young war correspondent...