The Judgment Night soundtrack was (and still is) one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, with rock/rap collaborations between Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul, Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill, and Helmet and House of Pain. Pick up a copy!

That being said, I’d never seen the actual movie Judgment Night until one recent afternoon. And you know, it’s not bad. If I had watched it in 1993, like I should have, I would have liked it quite a bit.

The plot is extremely simple: Emilo Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Stephen Dorff, and, ugh, Jeremy Piven rent a luxury camper for a title fight in the big, bad, unidentified city. Looking for a shortcut to the bout, they come across Denis Leary and his goons trying to kill them, turning the dangerous streets in a small-time bloodbath, with the climax in a rundown department store or a Chinese warehouse — I can’t be sure.

With the exception of Piven, who is mercifully taken out in the middle of the film, it’s a good little urban survivalist film, with Estevez, Dorff and even Gooding on the top of their game — whatever that game is — with Leary playing against his acerbic comedian persona as a real menacing figure.

Sure, Judgment Night’s at the bottom of my list of great good action films list, but it is pretty darn entertaining with some real playful setups, like the whole scene at the apartment slums, and enough white-knuckle suspense to keep you on your toes. And even though it won’t be remembered for anything but the insane soundtrack, it’s a pretty good watch overall. Give it a try.

Earlier that year, Estevez and Leary were also in National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1, a pretty perfect rip-off of the ZAZ formula that I happen to love. So Judgment Night should have been at least a rental — why did I miss this? And were Estevez and Leary the Hope and Crosby of their day? We’ll never know. Either way, get that soundtrack. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Nothing against crime films in which the bad guys share names with subs and pizzas — your Fat Tonys, your Big Frankies — but it’s nice to see one that uses a simple Benny. That makes the movie feel more realistic. Not that I know anyone with an allergy to loud sounds as Leo Woodall’s protagonist suffers throughout Tuner, but hey, take your cinematic victories where you find them.

Woodall’s Niki is a piano tuner whose sensitivity issue requires him to wear noise-killing headphones. What the world sees as his disability actually provides him with a superpower: perfect pitch. It may also be his Kryptonite, once he accidentally finds his gift extends from Steinways to safecracking. Soon, a security company owner (Lior Raz, Glaidator II) for the toniest of clients hires Niki for freelance gigs that aren’t exactly — how to put this? — legal.

That’s great for Niki’s cash flow, but potential dynamite to his burgeoning relationship with a composition major (Havana Rose Liu, Lurker) he meets at one of his appointments — the on-the-up-and-up kind. In his fictional feature debut, Academy Award-winning documentarian Daniel Roher (Navalny) had me so invested in their fireworks, I was legitmately thrown for a second when the criminal element kicked back in.

If Tuner weren’t fantastic, the headline would be Dustin Hoffman’s return to the big screen in a high-quality project, here as Niki’s mentor and father figure. Instead, the news is three performers turning in breakout work that knocks Hoffman off said screen. Woodall (HBO’s The White Lotus) brings a sad, quiet intensity, while Liu brings feistiness and distrust to what could been a thankless window-dressing part, giving her character dimension and spark. And Raz is believably chummy one moment, terrifying the next, and back again.

If forced to pick a fourth standout, it’d be one unseen: sound. It — and often the lack thereof — is not merely integral to the story, but immersively so. The auditory experience is reminiscent of 2019’s Sound of Metal, but with a rap sheet. Sharp, tense and unexpectedly moving, Tuner is a thriller in the key of excellence. —Rod Lott

In theaters May 29.