New Releases for the Week of April 26, 2013

PAIN & GAIN

(Paramount) Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Rob Corddry, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeong. Directed by Michael Bay

Three somewhat dense bodybuilders engage on a campaign of kidnapping, extortion and murder in Miami in the 1990s. Based on a true story, Michael Bay brings his Bad Boys sensibility to the story which love him or hate him, a movie like this sorely needs.

See the trailer, clips and promos here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Action

Rating: R (for bloody violence, crude sexual content, nudity, language throughout and drug use)

Arthur Newman

(Cinedigm/Flatiron) Colin Firth, Emily Blunt, Anne Heche, Peter Jurasik. A middle-aged divorced man, tired of a life that is going nowhere, decides to disappear. He buys himself a new identity and drives in the general direction of Terra Haute, Indiana where he hopes to reinvent himself as a golf pro at a small country club there. However he picks up a girl who’s got problems of her own and on the road to Indiana the two find something more than they were expecting.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R  (for sexual content, language and brief drug use)

The Big Wedding

(Lionsgate) Robert De Niro, Katherine Heigl, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton. When their adopted son gets married, a divorced couple is forced to pretend to still be together in order to placate his ultraconservative biological mom, who is showing up unexpectedly to the wedding. The family is then forced to confront all the sins of their past – in front of everyone invited to a big wedding.

See the trailer and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: NR  

The Company You Keep

(Sony Classics) Shia LaBeouf, Robert Redford, Julie Christie, Richard Jenkins. A lawyer’s true identity as a former radical wanted for murder is exposed by a reporter, forcing the lawyer to go on the run with his young daughter to find the one person who can clear his name. Redford also directed this.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for language)

Disconnect

(LD Entertainment) Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Paula Patton, Alexander Skarsgard. An ensemble piece with a theme of connection (or lack thereof) in the modern digital world. The stories include a lawyer who can’t put down his cell phone nor communicate with his own family, a couple whose darkest secrets are exposed online, a single dad and cop struggling to raise a son who is cyber-bullying classmates, and an ambitious journalist discovers a story about a teen masquerading as an adult on an adult website.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for sexual content, some graphic nudity, language, violence and drug use – some involving teens)

Filly Brown

(Pantelion) Gina Rodriguez, Jenn Rivera, Lou Diamond Phillips, Edward James Olmos. A young girl with an incarcerated mom and a dad struggling to provide for his family finds self-expression through hip-hop. When a record producer offers to sign her to a contract, she thinks at first that it’s the answer to all her prayers – but she soon realizes the cost might be more than she could have ever thought it would be.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for disturbing violent and sexual content, graphic nudity, language and some drug use) 

Mud

(Roadside Attractions) Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon. A couple of young boys discover a man living on an island in the Mississippi River. Calling himself Mud, he describes a fairly lurid tale of murder, love, a beautiful woman and bounty hunters. The boys agree to help him, until the tale turns out to be true – and a little more than he told them to begin with. This is another entry from the Florida Film Festival now playing a regular run at the Enzian.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for some violence, sexual references, language, thematic elements and smoking)  

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Paula Patton and Tom Cruise flee Doc Brown's new car after an 88MPH chase through Mumbai.

(2011) Spy Action (Paramount) Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Josh Holloway, Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Lea Seydoux, Anil Kapoor, Samuli Edelmann, Ivan Shvedoff, Tom Wilkinson, Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan. Directed by Brad Bird

 

The term “popcorn flick” usually refers to a movie which one brainlessly munches popcorn to, one in which the viewer is engrossed in the action and in a real sense leaves themselves behind and become enmeshed in the world the filmmaker has created. Strangely, the term is often used in a derogatory fashion. From where I sit, it should be a high honor to be a popcorn flick.

And here one is, the fourth entry in the long-standing Mission: Impossible franchise which Cruise began 15 years ago as a big screen adaptation of an old ’60s spy series that in turn was a response to the wild popularity of James Bond. In many ways, the film franchise has of late outdone the Bond series, taking it high-tech and over the top.

The movie begins with Ethan Hunt (Cruise) being broken out of a Russian prison by Benji Dunn (Pegg) and Jane Carter (Patton), two fellow IMF agents. Hunt then receives orders to break into the Kremlin and retrieve information about a nuclear terrorist code-named Cobalt, who intends to destroy the information so that his true identity can’t be discovered. Hunt arrives too late; the information is gone and Cobalt has planted a bomb in the Kremlin, blowing it to smithereens. Hunt – and by extension, the IMF – are blamed.

Hunt manages to escape the hospital where he has been treated for wounds suffered in the explosion – and the dogged Russian agent (Mashkov) who is pursuing him – and is picked up by the Secretary (Wilkinson) of the IMF and Brandt (Renner), an IMF analyst. The Secretary explains that the IMF has been disavowed as an agency by the President – a situation called the Ghost Protocol – and that Hunt must stop Cobalt from initiating a nuclear horror and simultaneously clear the IMF from wrongdoing in the Kremlin explosion. Unfortunately, the Secretary destructs shortly thereafter and Brandt and Hunt barely escape with their lives.

Thus begins a globe-trotting adventure that takes Hunt and his team-by-default to Dubai and Mumbai in India, following Cobalt (Nyqvist) and his lackey Wistrom (Edelmann) and put them squarely in the path of lethal assassin Sabine Moreau (Seydoux) who had earlier murdered Agent Hanaway (Holloway who was Sawyer in TV’s “Lost” as you might recall) who also had been Carter’s lover. Carter is a bit cheesed off at Moreau because of it.

This is Bird’s live-action debut, having directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille for Pixar. He is perfectly suited for this kind of movie, the M:I series being something of a live action cartoon in any case. There are stunt sequences here that are some of the best in the series, including one in which Ethan Hunt climbs the outside of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest building using a pair of electronic gloves that allow him to stick to the glass surface. There is also a climactic fight between Cobalt and Hunt in Mumbai in one of those garages where the cars are stacked as in a carrying case and brought out robotically. There’s also a chase in a sandstorm involving Hunt and Wistrom.

If it sounds like Tom Cruise gets to have all of the fun in this movie, he essentially does. He has the charisma and star power still to retain your attention whenever he’s on the screen. However there is also no doubt that the man is getting older (he’ll turn 50 in 2012) and that he is slowing down some. This is not the cocky self-confident Cruise who did the first Mission: Impossible film. He is not yet too old for the role but he’s certainly showing signs that he’s on his way there.

Renner gets to show off his acting chops a bit, surprisingly, as Brandt. In many ways his character is more interesting than Ethan Hunt, having been given a bit of a backstory and Brandt gets to pull off a bit of pathos which is unexpected in a movie like this. Then again, it has been widely rumored that he is the heir apparent to the franchise once Cruise decides to bow out and it seems likely that a passing of the torch will take place in the next film of the series or perhaps two films down the road.

Patton and Pegg have supporting roles, she as sex appeal and he as comedy relief and both perform ably. Patton in particular really isn’t given a lot to work with and that may leave some cold when it comes to her character, but she is sexy when she needs to be and an action heroine when she needs to be.

An action film doesn’t need to have intelligence (although that can be a pleasant plus) in order to be successful. For those looking for entertainment that doesn’t require a great deal of mental investment, this is definitely the way to go. It’s got great stunts and fights, high tech gadgets that would make Q Division green with envy, sexy women, hunky men and international intrigue – not to mention exotic locations. There may be no casinos here but the spirit of James Bond is alive and well with this franchise – and with the Bond franchise as well, thankfully. Spy movie fans are certainly living in the best of times.

REASONS TO GO: Spectacular stunts and amazing pacing makes for an exciting, breathtaking and ultimately mindless action film.

REASONS TO STAY: Cruise is a little long in the tooth for his role. Nyqvist makes for a pretty bland villain.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a good deal of violence action-style.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Cruise performed the scaling of the Burj Khalifa tower sequence himself without the aid of a stunt double. The insurance company is recovering nicely from their angina.

HOME OR THEATER: Definitely in the theater – the big stunts and big vistas deserve a big screen.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

TOMORROW: The Darkest Hour

Just Wright

Common finds that dribbling through traffic might be easier than acting.

(2010) Romantic Comedy (Fox Searchlight) Queen Latifah, Common, Paula Patton, Phylicia Rashad, Pam Grier, James Pickens Jr., Mehcad Brooks, Michael Landes, Laz Alonso, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, Bobby Simmons.  Directed by Sanaa Hamri

We all look for someone who will be the perfect mate. Whether it is a Mr. or a Ms. we hold every potential suitor up to a rigorous standard that insures that the one we end up with is neither too good to be true or not good enough, but is just right.

Leslie Wright (Latifah) is a physical therapist and a good one. She’s also a New Jersey Nets fan and a good one. She goes to most of the games to cheer her boys in blue on, along with her best friend and “godsister” Morgan Alexander (Patton), who goes to the games for quite a different reason – to snare herself an NBA husband. The lifestyle appeals to her.

At a gas station Leslie meets Scott McKnight (Common), the star guard of the Nets who is having issues finding his gas cap. Grateful for the guidance, he invites her to his birthday party (which is of course the quickest way to an NBA star’s heart – through his car). Of course, Leslie brings Morgan along who quickly snares McKnight with her little black dress and pretty face.

Leslie has also fallen for the handsome and sweet-natured ball star, but as usual she plays second fiddle to her more attractive, less plus-sized friend. However when McKnight suffers a career-threatening knee injury at the NBA All-Star game, it is up to Leslie to rehabilitate him under the watchful eye of his over-protective mom (Rashad) – and without the help of Morgan who has no desire to be the wife of an ex-NBA star.

This is as formulaic a rom-com as you’re likely to find, and there are plenty of ‘em out there. It does have the added advantage of Latifah who is as likable a star as there is today. In Last Holiday she showed me she can carry a movie on her charm alone. In this one, she doesn’t quite accomplish it. To be fair, she doesn’t have much to work with. Leslie is as written almost bland. Hamri fails to utilize the charm of one of Hollywood’s most charming actresses and that’s a crying shame.

It’s obvious that the NBA supported the movie as many of their stars cameo in the film. None of them are especially graceful in the acting department, although they are smooth and fluid on the hardwood. Patton is a terrific actress, but her character is soooo shallow it beggars belief. She’s supposed to be a decent, good person that in the end loves her friend and yet she stabs her in the back at nearly every opportunity. Does. Not. Compute.

Everything that is wrong with the modern romantic comedy can be found here; cliché characters, formula story, unbelievable situations and a distinct lack of comedy. This is a misfire that given the talent of the actors, should have been a grand slam.

WHY RENT THIS: Latifah is one of the most charming and warm actresses in the business.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The movie is distinctly un-funny and Patton’s Morgan is so despicable that there’s no dramatic tension whatsoever.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some suggestive situations and a smattering of foul language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Lawrence Frank, the coach of the Nets at the time of filming, was fired 16 games into the following season and although he appears in the film, he wasn’t depicted as the coach.  

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a featurette on Common’s basketball training; the Blu-Ray also has an additional featurette on the involvement of NBA players in the film.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $21.6M on an unreported production budget; the movie may well have made money.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

TOMORROW: Youth in Revolt

Swing Vote

Kevin Costner and Madeline Carroll go fishing for an audience but don't catch anything.

(2008) Comedy (Touchstone) Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, George Lopez, Madeline Carroll, Paula Patton, Judge Reinhold, Willie Nelson, Mare Winningham, Richard Petty,  Nana Visitor.  Directed by Joshua Michael Stern

We all want our system to work, but the fact of the matter is that few of us believe that it does. However, like the eternal cock-eyed optimists that we are, we hope that it could.

Bud Johnson (Costner) is one of those who don’t really care one way of the other. He works a mind-numbing job at an egg-packing plant and further numbs his mind with alcohol. His cute-as-a-button and smart-as-a-whip daughter Molly (Carroll) is really the adult in the family, putting up with his constant hangovers and dead-drunk slumbers with the patience of a saint.

She is passionate about civics however and is urging her dad to vote in the upcoming Presidential election. As usually is the case with her dad, he messes it up and Molly figures out how to vote for him, a contrivance that backfires when a voting machine error winds up not counting his vote. And when the New Mexico electoral votes prove to be crucial in determining the winner of the election, it turns out that Bud Johnson’s vote in an unlikely turn of events is the deciding vote for the whole enchilada.

Of course this brings out a media feeding frenzy and personal visits from the candidates, the incumbent conservative President Andrew Boone (Grammer) and the liberal challenger Donald Greenleaf (Hopper) visiting, promising Bud the sun and the moon with their obsequious campaign managers (Tucci and Lane, respectively) in tow.

Bud’s main goal is not to be the deciding factor but simply not to embarrass his daughter, which he is doing in a big way. The issues of the campaign trail and the resulting chicanery of the candidates gives way to the need for a father to make his daughter proud.

This is not really a polemic, and it isn’t strictly a comedy despite its categorization as such above. This is more or less a look at the modern American electoral process with elements of a spoof to it and certainly elements of a comedy. That it is marketed as a comedy is a very likely reason the movie floundered in its general release.

It’s certainly not the fault of the actors. Kevin Costner has moved from the dashing leading man phase of his career to the respected character actor phase. He takes the all-American schlub who is ignorant and content to remain that way and gives him charm. Bud Johnson isn’t the kind of neat, tidy character who gets rocked by the world’s blows and stands tall. He’s complicated and terminally weak-willed.

He has a match in young Madeline Carroll, who was so excellent in last fall’s Flipped. There are an awful lot of smarter-than-adult juvenile roles out there that are just plain annoying, but Carroll elevates the role to something special. She has a really intense scene with her mom (Winningham) which explains a lot of why both Bud and Molly are the way they are – it’s one of the best scenes in the movie and is the kind of performance that gets you noticed.

In addition to the impressive cast, there are also celebrity cameos of pundits, politicians, politicos and celebrities. A little bit of that can go a long way and before too long you’re overloaded on the famous faces in the film, which also would have benefitted by a little more editing. I don’t know about you, but I thought the movie would have been perfectly fine with at least half an hour of meaningless subplots lopped out, don’t you think?

If Frank Capra was alive today, this would be the kind of thing he’d be selling. He’d just condense it down into an hour and a half or less whereas this drags on for more than two. Its heart is in the right place though – and as examinations of the American political system go, it’s amazingly candid. I thought it was a bit underrated when it came out and thus I’m pleased to give the movie some love now.

WHY RENT THIS: A surprising amount of pathos mixed in with a terrific performance by Costner.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Too many famous people cameos, gets distracting. The movie is much too long and would have benefitted from a firmer hand on the editing room.

FAMILY VALUES: There are a few bad words but nothing too rough.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is Costner’s second movie with Hopper, the first being Waterworld (1995).

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a music video from the band Modern West which is fronted by Kevin Costner himself.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $17.6M on a $21M production budget; the movie was a flop.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

TOMORROW: The Tree of Life

Mirrors

You should see what Jack Bauer does with more than 24 hours...

(2008) Supernatural Horror (20^th Century Fox) Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Cameron Boyce, Erica Gluck, Amy Smart, Mary Beth Peil, John Shrapnel, Jason Flemyng, Julian Glover, Tim Ahern, Josh Cole, Ezra Buzzington.  Directed by Alexandre Aja

There are questions in the universe that bear asking – some of them are not what you’d call obvious. For example, if eyes are the mirrors of the soul, does that mean that mirrors are the eyes for the soul too?

Ben Carson (Sutherland) has taken a few hits to the soul lately. A recovering alcoholic – not a good place to be if you’re a cop – he was involved in a shooting that left an undercover cop dead. His antics have alienated his wife Amy (Patton) to the point where she’s kicked him out of the house, severely limiting his contact with son Michael (Boyce) and daughter Daisy (Gluck). He’s been suspended from the force and is reduced to sleeping on his sister Angela’s (Smart) couch.

He gets a job as a night watchman at the Mayflower Department Store. A burned-out husk that is awaiting resolution of an insurance company squabble, it was the site of a fatal fire years ago. Soot coats nearly every square inch except for the many pristine mirrors, oddly looking polished and untouched.

He begins seeing strange images in the mirrors, horrible murders that come to pass. He has terrifying, realistic hallucinations of burning alive. The mirrors begin to communicate tasks that he is expected to do, and when Ben resists, family members are threatened and even killed. Soon, Ben is in a fight of his life against an enemy that is supernatural – one that can travel to any mirror or in fact, any reflective surface – and can kill with its reflection. His only salvation may lie with a cloistered nun who is not exactly jumping at the chance to help.

Aja is one of the most promising up-and-coming directors in the horror genre. His French films – particularly High Tension and his remake of The Hills Have Eyes are strong from a visual standpoint, and he knows how to make characters relatable. The visual sense of Mirrors is pretty dark, which you would expect in a deserted, burned-out department store. Sometimes underlit is a good thing, and it adds to the creepy element.

The effects are a little on the chintzy side – the mirrors use a kind of television static ripple effect that looks a little bit like a low-rent Ring. However, there are some pretty successful moments, such as a death scene in which a naked woman in a bathtub is killed by her reflection pulling off her mandible. It’s one of the highlights of the movie.

Most people know Kiefer Sutherland through his TV show “24” and this role isn’t too different than Jack Bauer. Ben is a little more damaged than Jack (I know, I know, Jack is plenty damaged) but they’re both men of action who when backed up to the wall. He has demonstrated a terrific action hero persona and there’s no doubt in my mind that if he continues to pursue parts like this, he’ll continue to be successful. This is the perfect role for him.

Smart is one of those actresses who just does a good job every time out. She doesn’t get big time leading roles but whenever she gets a part, she runs with it. Patton is a beautiful actress who has little else to do but look beautiful. I would have loved to see more motherly instincts from her when her kids are threatened; she doesn’t seem anxious enough.

The movie is a bit on the talky side; too many conversations between Patton and Sutherland about how they really should be together but she just can’t get past his actions and he needs to get his act together…okay, we get it. Other than that, this is a competent horror film that while a bit pedestrian about the whole mirror conceit, has plenty of scares, enough to recommend it.

WHY RENT THIS: Aja is one of horror’s most promising visual stylists. Sutherland has plenty of charisma in the lead role; Smart has a memorable supporting role.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Could have been a little less talky.

FAMILY VALUES: There are lots of images that may be too intense for youngsters, plenty of violence and bad language and some nudity.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The unfinished Academy of Sciences building in Bucharest, Romania doubled for the nearly-demolished Mayflower Department Store.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: The Blu-Ray edition includes a vignette showing Anna Esseker’s none-too-cheerful childhood, and there is also a featurette on the role of mirrors in urban legends and myth that may well be more informative and interesting than the movie.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $77.5M on an unreported production budget; the movie was undoubtedly a hit.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: The Rocket

New Releases for the Week of May 6, 2011

Thor gets ready to lay the hammer down on a bad guy.

THOR

(Paramount/Marvel) Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Colm Feore, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Samuel L. Jackson, Ray Stevenson, Jaimie Alexander, Clark Gregg. Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Thor, the God of Thunder and son of Odin is a mighty warrior but an arrogant one. His arrogance unwittingly triggers hostilities between the Gods and the Giants who have been in an uneasy peace for centuries. For his actions, Odin banishes his son to live on Earth and to learn a little humility, which isn’t easy for a God living on Earth but there you go.

See the trailer, clips, a featurette, promos and an interview here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard. 3D, IMAX 3D

Genre: Action

Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence)

I Am

(Paladin) Tom Shadyac, Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn. After a devastating cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly permanently, director Shadyac (auteur of the Ace Ventura movies among others) re-examines himself and his place in the universe, deciding to make a movie about it which might just make up for Ace Ventura, karma-wise.

See the trailer and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: NR

In a Better World

(Sony Classics) Mikael Persbrandt, William Johnk Nielsen, Trine Dyrholm, Markus Rygaard. An idealistic doctor who splits time between his home in Denmark and an African refugee camp must choose between revenge and forgiveness. At home his son is undergoing the same choice, albeit in a far different situation. This was the Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film earlier this year.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for violent and disturbing content some involving preteens, and for language)

Jumping the Broom

(TriStar) Angela Bassett, Paula Patton, Mike Epps, Loretta Devine. It seems like it would be a simple thing; two young people coming together in matrimony, in beautiful Martha’s Vineyard no less. However their families – one well-to-do, the other blue collar – are at each other’s throats. Not exactly the seeds for a happy nuptial, right?

See the trailer, clips, interviews and promos here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Urban Romantic Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for some sexual content)

POM Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold

(Sony Classics) Morgan Spurlock, Ben Silverman, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader. Gadfly Spurlock (he of Super Size Me) takes on his own industry this time – and product placement therein as he documents his attempts to have his film entirely financed by product placement. Along the way he gives us a glimpse of how the movie industry works – and how pervasive advertising is in our lives.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: PG-13 (for some language and sexual material)

Potiche

(Music Box) Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini, Karin Viard. Set in the 1970s, the trophy wife of a wealthy French industrialist proves to be better at running his company than he is when he is convalescing from a heart attack, setting the stage for this French war between the sexes. I saw this previously at the Florida Film Festival and reviewed it here.

See the trailer and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: R (for some sexuality)

Something Borrowed

(Warner Brothers) Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, Colin Egglesfield, John Krasinski. Rachel and Darcy are best friends; Rachel is the maid of honor for Darcy, who is about to marry the man that Rachel has had a crush on since law school. When Rachel sleeps with Darcy’s husband-to-be after a night of too much drinking, their little circle of friends are in for a game of “change partners!”

See the trailer, clips, featurettes and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content including dialogue, and some drug material)

New Releases for the Week of May 14, 2010

Robin Hood takes aim, which means someone is going to get perforated.

ROBIN HOOD

(Universal) Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Danny Huston, William Hurt, Max von Sydow, Mark Strong, Matthew Macfayden, Kevin Durand. Directed by Ridley Scott

The latest reimagining of the legend of Robin Hood reunites the Gladiator team of director Scott and actor Crowe. Here, a lethal bowman in the Crusades returns home to find Nottingham suffering under the rule of a despotic Sheriff enforcing the rule of a cruel monarch. Only the spirited widow Lady Marion acts as a beacon of hope for the downtrodden people of Nottingham. Robin determines to free the people from the yoke of oppression and gathers together a crew of mercenaries and outlaws to steal from the rich to give to the poor, but finds himself embroiled in larger issues – as in keeping his country from descending into a bloody civil war.

See the trailer, featurette, clips and web-only content here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG-13 (for violence including intense sequences of warfare, and some sexual content)

Harry Brown

(Goldwyn) Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Liam Cunningham, Iain Glen. Harry Brown lives in a flat in a neighborhood that while once good, has fallen into ruin and crime. The police are unwilling or unable to do anything about it. Harry’s only companion is Leonard, his closest friend. When Leonard is murdered by the gang bangers, Harry – a former military man – takes matters into his own hands.

See the trailer, clips and a music video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout, drug use and sexual content)

House Full

(Eros International) Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh, Deepika Padukone, Lara Dutta. When a young man gets fed up with all his rotten luck, he decides that only finding true love will break him out of the cursed life he is leading. The quickest way to find true love is to date as many women as possible, so he dates three women at once – and through a series of misadventures, winds up married to all three of them in this Bollywood comedy.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: Not Rated (but parental guidance recommended due to comic violence and some sexual situations)

Just Wright

(Fox Searchlight) Queen Latifah, Common, Paula Patton, Phylicia Rashad. A physical therapist finds she is falling for a pro basketball player whom she is rehabilitating from a career-threatening injury. The relationship is threatened when her man-eating best friend also sets her sights on the NBA star.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG (for some suggestive material and brief language)

Letters to Juliet

(Summit) Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Egan, Gael Garcia Bernal. A young American woman engaged to be married takes a vacation to romantic Verona and winds up joining a group of volunteers who answer letters from the lovelorn addressed to Juliet, of the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. One particular letter grabs her imagination and she sets out to bring two people together who have been waiting 50 years for it, and finds the meaning of love in the process.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG (for brief rude behavior, some language and incidental smoking)

Deja Vu

In the aftermath of a disaster, Denzel Washington works the evidence.

(Touchstone) Denzel Washington, Jim Caviezel, Val Kilmer, Bruce Greenwood, Matt Craven, Paula Patton, Adam Goldberg, Donna Scott, Elle Fanning, Elden Henson, Erika Alexander. Directed by Tony Scott

Have you ever gotten the feeling that you’ve seen a movie before, even as you’re watching it for the first time? It’s not necessarily something a filmmaker wants their audience to feel, but sometimes there’s no help for it.

It’s Fat Tuesday in post-Katrina New Orleans, and the Algiers ferry bound for the Crescent City is full of sailors and partygoers bound and determined to have a great time. Not too far into the voyage, a car on the ferry explodes, setting off a chain reaction and a second, more damaging explosion and the Ferry goes down to the bottom of Lake Ponchatrain. The catastrophe kills men, women and children in a city which is already reeling from a hurricane that has all but destroyed it.

ATF investigator Doug Carlin (Washington) is called to the scene to determine whether the explosion was a deliberate act. While the FBI, local police and other agencies are squabbling, Carlin – possessed of a cat-quick mind and the ability to instantly see the compelling evidence – quickly determines that the cause of the explosion was, in fact, a bomb, making it a deliberate act of terrorism.

Carlin’s style irritates some of his colleagues, although FBI Agent Pryzwarra (Kilmer) finds him amusing and impressive. Pryzwarra’s boss (Greenwood) agrees and when a burned body washes up onshore in an area that would put it in the water a full two hours before the Ferry disaster, the FBI and Carlin realize that the key to solving this mystery lies with finding out what happened to the beautiful woman (Patton) lying on the coroner’s table. To do this, Carlin is brought into a highly sensitive experiment that may allow a quick-thinking investigator like Carlin a second chance at seeing what really happened, but also change his life forever.

Scott and Washington are reunited for the first time since the two made Crimson Tide and the stylish Scott knows how to use his leading man ably, even though Denzel is getting a little bit long in the tooth for these kinds of roles. The premise of by observing the past being able to affect it is one not new to science fiction literature or movies (heck, “The Twilight Zone” basically made a living on just that kind of conundrum) and in all honesty, Déjà Vu doesn’t add anything new to the dance.

However, Tony Scott is an adept action director and he doesn’t disappoint here, with a chase scene that has the two cars in different time periods, with Washington unable to see the car he is chasing and being guided along by his team back at the appropriately grungy looking lab. The climactic scenes pitting Washington and his love interest against the bad guy (a very un-Christlike Jim Caviezel) are played with appropriate tension. A lot of directors could take lessons from Scott in that regard – it’s not as easy a skill as it seems.

Scott is blessed with a very talented cast, including the criminally under-used Matt Craven as Carlin’s partner – this is an actor who deserves meatier roles – and also reunites Washington with Greenwood, both of whom got their starts on the “St. Elsewhere” television show so many years ago.

To the bad is the one bugaboo that plagues these kinds of time-tripping sci-fi actioners – the tendency for the plot to get muddled and confusing. Scott trumps this by making his characters real and then casts interesting actors to play them – Goldberg is particularly nifty as a science geek, and Patton makes a gorgeous corpse, but also a mighty fine love interest. The resolution seems a bit forced, but then if you think about these things too hard you can get migraines.

I kind of regret missing this in the multiplex, although it looked just fine on our medium-sized bedroom TV screen. To be fair, this isn’t a movie that’s really out to break new ground. It just wants its audience to have a good time, and at that, it’s successful. If you’re looking for something to rent that satisfies your Jones for action, you could do worse than this.

WHY RENT THIS: Some nice action sequences highlighted by some very big booms – gotta love things that blow up real good. The cast is top-notch. The climactic scenes ratchet up the tension.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The plot can be hard to follow. While tense, the resolution seems a bit forced and contrived.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a good deal of violence and some sensuality but otherwise okay for most audiences.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: While the movie was in pre-production, New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, forcing the producers to make a decision to shoot elsewhere, a move that director Tony Scott resisted. In the time that it took to reboot the production, New Orleans had recovered sufficiently to allow shooting there and pre-production resumed, allowing Deja Vu the distinction of being the first movie to film in New Orleans post-Katrina.

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: The Surveillance Window feature allows the director commentary to be fleshed out with video sequences that may also be viewed separately.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Everybody’s Fine