The DVD Beat - April 28

PICK OF THE WEEK:

The Uninvited
This one I wasn’t expecting. “The Uninvited” is not the gruesome supernatural horror film that was advertised in the trailers; it’s an absorbing psychological drama/Evil Stepmother thriller in which everyone’s sanity, including that of the protagonist, is thrown into question. Emily Browning plays Anna, who checks out of a mental institution after a botched suicide attempt. Reeling from the accidental death of her sick mother, she’s further unsettled because her novelist father (David Strathairn) is now romantically involved with his dead wife’s former live-in nurse, Rachael (Elizabeth Banks). Anna and her older sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) quickly become convinced that their father’s new flame is out to kill them, and although Dad brushes off their suspicions as mere delusion, everyone who seems to know anything about Rachael’s dark past ends up dead. Could Rachael have killed their mother? And could she be that evil nurse who knocks off her patients to get closer to their husbands? And are those the restless spirits of her victims haunting Anna in the night? The movie lives and dies by its construction, so if you happen to telegraph any of the twists and turns before the script throws them out, there goes the whole ball game. But “The Uninvited” is surprisingly effective, and it’s infinitely better than the countless other remakes of Asian horror pictures that have clogged the market recently (this one is loosely based on an acclaimed Korean film called “A Tale of Two Sisters”). It is merely an exercise in style and manipulation, but it is successful as such. [PG-13; 87m.]

ALSO ON DVD:

Bride Wars
Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are naturally talented, beautiful, charming actresses, yet their characters in “Bride Wars” are shrill, annoying, stupid, shallow and unlikable. They play inseparable friends who have had their dream weddings planned out since they were little girls, but they’re at one another’s throats when their wedding days are mistakenly scheduled on the same date. Of course, they decide to thwart the other’s wedding: Hudson switches Hathaway’s bronzer at the tanning salon so she comes out with orange skin, and Hathaway tricks a stylist into coloring Hudson’s hair blue. Har-de-har. If these characters had been written with any shred of intelligence or realism, they would have solved their problems reasonably, the movie would have been over after the half hour mark and we all would have been better off. [PG; 88m.]

Nothing But the Truth
This one has been bouncing around in my head for almost a week now. Either “Nothing But the Truth” is a bleeding heart crusader for journalistic integrity, or it’s a conflicted exploration of a reporter’s unwavering attempts to forward her career. The movie works best, I think, as the latter, although I have a sneaking suspicion it may not have been intended as such. When our protagonist, Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale), discovers that a woman named Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga), a classroom mother at her son’s elementary school, is a former CIA agent, she makes it her duty to write about it in her column. Compromising the identities of covert government agents is a federal crime, but Rachel is adamant that she will not reveal her source, even if it means being thrown in prison. So, are we supposed to think that she’s dignified for upholding her honor, or that she’s deliberately stalling an investigation in order to drum up media coverage? Is she selfish or selfless? The movie left me unsure, and the ending only complicates things further. It seems to be resolute about its position, but I couldn’t quite come down on either side of the issue. [R; 108m.]

Down for the count

Fighting
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“Fighting.” Some would say it’s too plain a title, but, considering how simple-minded and conventional this movie is, I can’t think of a better one. It follows the same basic formula that all films of this ilk are seemingly required to: Our hero is a tough, brooding, ruggedly handsome, down-on-his-luck kid who rises to a certain challenge and finds glory in (insert name of sport here). In this case, the sport in question is—you guessed it—fighting.

Shawn MacArthur, played by Channing Tatum, makes a living hawking phony merchandise outside Radio City Music Hall, and, as the film opens, he has a large chunk of cash stolen. He discovers the thief is in cohorts with an expert scammer named Harvey (Terrence Howard, who acts like he’d rather be elsewhere), who recognizes Shawn’s resiliency and street smarts and talks him into participating in the underground fighting circuit.

The movie supplies us with several plot elements that will no doubt seem familiar. We have the Pretty Girl, here a single mother played by Zulay Henao. The Pretty Girl is, of course, obligated to fall in love with our hero only to discover he has a Dark Secret—Shawn is plagued by his torrid relationship with his father. And then we have the Arch Enemy—a former friend of Shawn’s who, naturally, he must fight in the end.

I have nothing against formula per se—“The Wrestler” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” two of my favorite films from last year, relied quite heavily on convention, but were elevated by a unique style, intelligence and intriguing performances. “Fighting,” on the other hand, doesn’t even attempt to invigorate its tired material; it all seems phoned in, going through the motions quite deliberately. It operates primarily on two different levels: predictable and boring.

The only parts of the film that work are the fight sequences, which are the reason most people will go see it. They have a realism and an immediacy that the majority of the picture sufficiently lacks—there is a real pain and danger there, and they hold your attention while the rest of the movie evaporates around them.

Directed by Dito Montiel. Written by Robert Munic and Montiel. Starring Channing Tatum, Terrence Howard, Zulay Henao, Luis Guzmán, Anthony DeSando and Brian White. PG-13; 105m.

The DVD Beat - April 21

DVD PICK OF THE WEEK:

The Wrestler
Everyone has been labeling Mickey Rourke’s performance in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” as a comeback. I think of it more as a resurrection. Rourke has always been a terrific actor and a magnetic presence, but even he admits that he hadn’t appeared in a decent movie in a while. This film came along at just the right time: Randy “The Ram” Robinson not only fits Rourke’s gruff charm and weathered looks, but it also mirrors Rourke’s anguish so closely that at times we feel like we’re watching a personal confession. The actor and the role are inextricably linked, and we not only fall for Randy but for Mickey as well. “The Wrestler” works as an old-fashioned underdog story, it works as a portrait of life on the underside of celebrity, and it works as a showcase for Rourke’s astonishing performance. I named it the best picture of 2008, and my opinion hasn’t changed. See this movie—see it, see it, see it. [R; 111m.]

ALSO ON DVD:

Frost/Nixon
Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” does what Oliver Stone’s “W” failed to do: It takes an easy political target and approaches it from an angle we aren’t expecting. Stone’s film was meant to be an empathetic portrait of our then-President, but it was really just a cartoonish polemic that told us nothing new or enlightening about its subject. Howard’s film, on the other hand, is not about Nixon the President but Nixon the man. It does not take sides—it simply observes. Based on Peter Morgan’s stage play, the film is a fictionalized re-creation of British reporter David Frost’s 1977 interviews with Nixon, which concerned such touchy subjects as Watergate, Vietnam and the President’s resignation. Michael Sheen is terrific as Frost, a fluff TV host who is determined to disprove his critics. And Frank Langella, Oscar-nominated for his work here, is pitch perfect as Nixon--intimidating, vulnerable, devious, pitiable. [R; 122m.]

Notorious
Christopher Wallace was only 24 when he was gunned down in L.A., an apparent victim of the escalating East Coast-West Coast rap battles. Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G., is the subject of “Notorious,” a standard biopic that chronicles Wallace’s rise and eventual downfall. Wallace is played by newcomer Jamal Woolard, whose performance is the best thing in the film, as is the soundtrack, which features Biggie’s genre-defying music. The only problem is that “Notorious” is extremely conventional, existing almost as a shrine to its subject—he is loved by his contemporaries but his personal life is a mess, and he only realized his full potential right before he died. It probably doesn’t help that two of the film’s producers are Wallace’s mother, Voletta, and his producer, Sean Combs, both of whom are characters in the movie. It’s a moderately entertaining picture, and worth seeing if you’re a fan of Wallace’s oeuvre. [R; 123m.]

Switched bodies, same tired formula

17 Again
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Zac Efron appears shirtless within the first thirty seconds of “17 Again,” which tells you all you need to know about the film’s target audience.

The thirteen-year-old girls who will like this movie are going to see it because Efron is dreamy and starred in the massively popular “High School Musical” series. They probably won’t realize that “17 Again” egregiously copies the blueprints of all those body switch comedies from the ‘80s—“Vice Versa,” “Dream a Little Dream,” the similarly-titled “18 Again,” etc.

As if it wants to remind us how dated it is, the movie opens in 1989. Efron plays Mike O’Donnell, the star point guard on his high school basketball team. It’s the Big Game—the college recruiters are in the stands—but Mike leaves right in the middle of everything in order to be with his pregnant teenage sweetheart. His prospects of being a basketball star are shot, but, hey, at least he’s in love.

Flash forward to present day: Mike (now played by Matthew Perry) and his sweetheart Scarlett (Leslie Mann) have separated. He’s stuck in a dead-end job he hates, he can’t connect with his teenage kids and he’s living with his childhood friend Ned (Thomas Lennon), who designed successful computer software and has spent his millions on memorabilia from “The Lord of the Rings.”

Returning to his old high school, Mike runs into a magical janitor (Brian Doyle-Murray) who grants his wish of being, you guessed it, seventeen again. The next morning, Matthew Perry rolls out of bed as Zac Efron (I’d like to see the casting directors explain their reasoning there), and he seizes the chance to get his life right the second time around.

He re-enrolls in the same high school, rejoins the basketball team, goes toe to toe with his daughter’s jerky boyfriend, gets his nerdy son a date with the head cheerleader and works his way back into Scarlett’s life. She’s amazed that her son’s new friend looks remarkably like her ex-husband’s seventeen-year-old self, but he supplies a logical explanation: He’s the illegitimate son of Mike’s deadbeat brother. Uh huh.

The cast do what they can with sitcom material. Efron has a genuine, easy-going charm; no doubt he could take on roles that would leave this one in the dust. Mann, who is married to Judd Apatow, is just lovely; it’s a shame she has nothing to do here. And Lennon provides the only real laughs: The movie’s best scene has him dragging the sexy school principal out on a date and discovering they have more in common than they imagined.

“17 Again” plays out exactly as you’d expect it to, never taking a step in a direction we haven’t seen before. Its heart is in the right place, but, boy, is it formulaic. A wittier script would have acknowledged its debt to other movies: When Mike first showed up at Ned’s house in his seventeen-year-old body, Ned should have sat him down and shown him “Like Father, Like Son” or “Big,” just to let him know that body switch movies have long been irrelevant.

Directed by Burr Steers. Written by Jason Filardi. Starring Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon, Matthew Perry, Melora Hardin, Michelle Trachtenberg, Sterling Knight and Brian Doyle-Murray. PG-13; 102m.

Paul Blart he ain’t

Observe and Report
Review by Nathan Weinbender

If Ronnie Barnhardt has any likable qualities, it’s because he’s played by Seth Rogen. This character is maladjusted, bipolar, creepy, hateful, pathetic and aggressive—who was in charge of the psychological evaluations when this guy was made head of mall security?

He takes his job very, very seriously. When a mall employee makes fun of a girl in a leg brace, he beats the guy’s head repeatedly into an oven door. And when he spots a bunch of punk kids loitering in the parking lot, he punches them out and breaks their skateboards. He’s like Paul Blart re-imagined by Martin Scorsese.

“Observe and Report” is the damnedest movie. It always seems to be contradicting its own style—it’s a comedy, but it undercuts its humor with sadness and violence. It’s an underdog story, but all of its characters are despicable, so there’s no one to really root for. And for every laugh the film offers, it throws us something so sick and subversive that we second guess ourselves.

But on with the plot. A serial flasher is accosting women in the mall parking lot, and cocky police detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) is assigned to the case. His presence infuriates Ronnie, who wants to take charge and save the day. Their rift only intensifies when the mall is burgled, and the men begin tripping over one another’s feet to solve the mystery first.

Their attention shifts when Brandi (Anna Faris), the blonde airhead at the cosmetics counter, is a victim of the flasher. She’s vain, arrogant and rude, and that she’s the object of Ronnie’s affection says more about him than it does her. When Ronnie tells her she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, she nods in agreement.

This is all fairly standard, but “Observe and Report” doubles in on itself and turns surreal and nasty. Take, for instance, one of the film’s strangest scenes: Ronnie, who dreams of one day being a cop, talks his way into riding along with Harrison on a police patrol. Harrison leaves him on “the worst street corner in the city,” where he’s cornered by a gang of crackheads who he proceeds to beat viciously with a nightstick.

Ronnie is seriously troubled, a laundry list of personality disorders. He’s like the guy who walks into work one day and shoots everybody, and on the news that night, they feature his associates in somber sound bites saying, “We should have seen that coming.” Most of the supporting characters are mercilessly mean to him; the others regard him with disgust, contempt or confusion.

We, in turn, are confused as well. How does this movie feel about its own main character? Should we be laughing at the guy? Should we feel sorry for him? Are we supposed to relate to him? We don’t know whether to give him a hug or run far, far away from him.

I felt that way about the whole movie, which has the uncanny ability to make us laugh and recoil in the same breath. The characters are funny, I guess, but they are so miserable and reprehensible that there are moments when we hate them and pity their ignorance. Feelings like that can be deadly to a comedy.

But I have to give writer-director Jody Hill credit for crafting a film that refuses to confine itself, that pushes the boundaries of mainstream comedy, and that challenges us to contemplate what should and shouldn’t be considered funny. “Observe and Report” is unlike anything I’ve seen before; whether or not that’s a compliment I have yet to decide.

Directed and written by Jody Hill. Starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Ray Liotta, Michael Pena, John Yuan, Matt Yuan, Jesse Plemons and Celia Weston. R; 86m.

Love is like a roller coaster

Adventureland
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Greg Motolla, who directed “Superbad,” is responsible for the new movie “Adventureland,” and having seen his previous film, which was a crass (but sweet) laff-a-minute teen comedy, I’m surprised by the soft-spoken wistfulness of this one.

The characters in “Superbad,” if you’ll recall, were high school seniors who were apprehensive about becoming grown-ups. The heroes of “Adventureland” aren’t much different: They’re just out of college, the world has made them cynical and they’re still waiting for that defining moment where they will march over into adulthood. That insecurity seemed charming in “Superbad;” now it just seems sort of pathetic.

Jesse Eisenberg (from “The Squid and the Whale”) plays James Brennan, who returns home after college still a virgin, heartbroken from a recent break-up and unsure of his future. His parents urge him to get a summer job, hoping he’ll make enough money to move to New York and become a journalist, and he ends up running the game booths at the local Adventureland theme park.

Everyone who works there either hates their job or is too stoned to care. The park is populated by familiar supporting characters: Joel, the nerdy best friend (Martin Starr), who informs us that all carnival games are rigged; Connell (Ryan Reynolds), the thirty-year-old mechanic who may or may not have once jammed with Lou Reed; and Bobby and Paulette (“SNL” cast members Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig), a weird married couple who manage the park.

And then there’s Em (Kristen Stewart), who is smart and pretty and obviously wounded. James is smitten, maybe because she’s really wounded and his wounds are merely superficial. Although Em likes him back, she’s still coping with the death of her mother, her father’s recent marriage and her self-destructive affair with the married Connell.

The cast here is great; I really can’t imagine anyone else playing these parts. Eisenberg, who looks like he could be Michael Cera’s older brother, really captures the egotism and neuroticism of a 24-year-old whose life would be perfect if he could just get out of this town. Starr is perfect as the philosophizing, pipe-smoking dweeb who, as a sign of affection, gives a girl a book by Gogol (“He died of self-inflicted starvation,” he explains). And Hader and Wiig get the film’s biggest laughs as the husband and wife who are oblivious to everything going on around them.

But it’s Kristen Stewart, now a superstar after appearing in “Twilight,” who is most impressive. For the critics who have regarded the lack of female perspective in modern comedies, here is a girl who is written to be more than the sum of her parts. Stewart is honest and headstrong and vulnerable all at the same time; she’s one of those natural performers who can say or do anything on-screen and we believe it. She’s got quite a career ahead of her, and not one that just involves chaste vampires.

“Adventureland” is set in 1987, but the angst it expresses is universal. No, it doesn’t explore any new territory, but it is a smart film, funny and nostalgic and sweet, where real life begins and ends when the summer does. That the characters are freed from the rigidity of sitcom plots and gross-out comedy routines and are allowed to live and breathe in the real world is one of the film’s many strengths.

Directed and written by Greg Mottola. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Ryan Reynolds, Margarita Levieva, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. R; 107m.

Fast cars, slow script

Fast and Furious
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I love a great car chase, but the “Fast and the Furious” movies have never been about the chases; they are about the crashes. Once you’ve seen one car crash, though, you’ve seen them all, and if your idea of a good night out is watching car after impeccable, expensive car crumpled up like a used cocktail napkin, then this is the movie for you.

Here we have the fourth film in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise, and the first sequel to feature the complete cast of the original entry in the series, which was released in 2001. It is simply called “Fast and Furious,” either because the producers thought “4 Fast 4 Furious” wasn’t a marketable title or because this movie just doesn’t have time for the’s.

No matter. The movie plays like a calendar of souped-up cars driven by beautiful people—if the cast looked like Abercrombie and Fitch models eight years ago, now they look like Calvin Klein models—which is all you should be expecting. But for a film that purports to be fast and furious, this is a curiously dismal affair, missing any real sense of fun, danger or unpredictability.

The picture opens well, with speed racer extraordinaire Dom (Vin Diesel), who ran off to Mexico after the first “F&F,” and his girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) hijacking an oil tanker truck in the Dominican Republic. Dom learns that the feds are planning to crack down on him, so he abandons Letty, who is mysteriously murdered before the end of the first reel.

Enter Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker), the undercover police officer who befriended Dom in the first film. He discovers that Letty was involved with a notorious drug runner whose mules are car racers, and he again infiltrates the world of illegal street racing. Dom shows up, too, because he wants revenge on Letty’s killer, but he’s still sore at Brian for not revealing he was a cop back in the first movie.

Before long, Dom and Brian are opponents engaged in full-on, pedal-to-the-medal street racing. They zigzag through downtown L.A., which is clogged with traffic, with hardly a scratch—although their challengers and the other drivers on the road aren’t so lucky.

Let me get this straight: O’Connor is going undercover as a drag racer, so the FBI supplies him with three flawless speed demons. Okay, I can buy that. But would they really allow him to take part in a race that is not only illegal but will inflict untold damage upon the city and put hundreds of lives at stake? I’ve heard of dedication to one’s craft, but that’s pushing it.

The movie continues, but the script does not. There is a lot more auto racing (most of which is clearly computer-generated), some sexual tension between O’Connor and Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), a big reveal involving the villain (which I thought was obvious from the get-go), a burgeoning camaraderie between Dom and Brian, and a soundtrack that is aggressively, annoyingly loud.

Watching “Fast and Furious” is like driving an old, rundown clunker: It stops and starts a lot, it’s made entirely of spare parts and it runs out of gas before it reaches its destination.

Directed by Justin Lin. Written by Chris Morgan. Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez and John Ortiz. PG-13; 107m.

Monsters and aliens competing for whom is less interesting—it’s a draw

Monsters vs. Aliens
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the “K” in DreamWorks SKG, has been touting the company’s latest picture, “Monsters vs. Aliens,” as a watershed in 3-D technology. He calls digital 3-D the third great revolution in cinema. “The first came in the twenties when silent movies became talkies,” Katzenberg explained recently. “The second came in the following decade, when we went from black-and-white to color. Now, 70 years on, we’re in the third great revolution: the new generation of 3D.”

In Katzenberg’s mind, there will be a time when 2-D cinematography will be a thing of the past, when audiences will refuse to see a movie unless things are thrown at the screen and out into the theater. “If David Lean had made ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ using these tools and techniques,” he says, “I think it would be even more extraordinary.” I can just imagine film historians, asked to name the most significant movies in history, rattling off a list similar to this: “The Birth of a Nation,” “Gone with the Wind,” “Monsters vs. Aliens.”

Katzenberg isn’t speaking as a rational lover of film but as a publicist, and as someone who will make more money off of 3-D movies than any of us will in our lifetimes. He is so overzealous to sell his movie that he has neglected to name the advent of feature animation as a major cinematic revolution: Not only was it a revolution, Mr. Katzenberg, but without it, “Monsters vs. Aliens” would never have been possible, 3-D or not.

Yes, 3-D has come a long way in the last few years. This movie utilizes an advanced digital technique called InTru3D, which creates a crisper, more enhanced 3-D effect, and it results in some of the best 3-D I’ve ever seen in a megaplex at the mall. I’ve always felt 3-D to be a gimmick. For me, it doesn’t add from the mechanics of the film, but distracts from them. But Katzenberg says InTru3D will allow “artists to tell a more compelling story and give filmgoers a more exciting, immersive 3-D movie experience.”

I don’t buy into any of this, because if InTru3D really makes a film more compelling, exciting and immersive, why is “Monsters vs. Aliens” so painfully pedestrian? The answer, I think, is in the very 3-D that Katzenberg has been hyping as the Second Coming. Even though the technology has advanced, it has yet to become a necessity. This movie looks great, but the filmmakers have taken such care in crafting the effects that they’ve completely neglected to write a compelling script.

Seeing movies like this, I always try to let the kid in me take over and just enjoy the ride. This is a movie about monsters and aliens, I told myself, and they will be fighting; it’s as simple as that. The first fifteen minutes seemed promising: There are some funny nods to ‘50s B-pictures, like “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” and “The Blob,” some witty lines of dialogue and a couple of neat action sequences. But the film simply isn’t charming, original or engaging, and I lost interest very quickly.

The story, as thin as it is, concerns a woman named Susan Murphy (voice by Reese Witherspoon), who, on her wedding day, is struck by an asteroid, becomes radioactive and grows to be, oh, fifty feet or so. She’s detained by the government, nicknamed Ginormica and partnered with various other monsters, including a brainless lump of blue goo (Seth Rogen), a mad scientist-cockroach hybrid (Hugh Laurie) and an aquatic ape with an insatiable libido (Will Arnett).

Pretty soon, the conflict of the title is realized, and Earth is attacked by Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson), a neurotic, maniacal alien bent on, you guessed it, world domination. He has armies of clones and robots, resulting in a couple of impressive scenes, including the complete destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The CGI effects are wonderful here, rich with color and detail, although the 3-D glasses tend to darken the picture.

I liked most of the voice performers, too, especially Rogen as the blob (he elevates the role from being a pale shadow of Ellen DeGeneres’ character in “Finding Nemo”), Kiefer Sutherland as a gruff Army general named W.R. Monger, and Stephen Colbert, very funny, as the staunch but clueless President. When the alien mother ship lands, he sets up a synthesizer and plays the five-note greeting from “Close Encounters,” hoping to keep it at bay.

Although “Monsters vs. Aliens” is in three dimensions, the story only has one; it’s technically impressive, but it has nothing original to say. Films like “Toy Story” and “The Incredibles” balanced striking visuals with unique characters and plots, and here it’s obvious that all the care and attention went into the special effects. I could just bow down and say that the movie is good for the kids, but since this is supposed to be a great revolution in the history of cinema, I don’t think I can be so kind.

Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon. Written by Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, Rob Letterman, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. Featuring the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rudd and Stephen Colbert. PG; 94m.

Death by numbers

Knowing
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“Knowing” is equal parts ridiculous and engrossing, a cheesy sci-fi potboiler dressed up in million-dollar clothing. It concerns itself with many weighty subjects, including the order of the universe, the fragility of mankind and possible Armageddon, but it’s hardly physiologically complex; in fact, it’s mostly quite silly.

Yet, almost in spite of myself, I found the film to be completely involving, even though the story loses its footing in the final acts.

The movie’s mythology is rooted in a sheet of paper covered with seemingly random numbers, an artifact from a time capsule buried fifty years ago. Nicolas Cage, playing astrophysicist and MIT professor John Koestler, discovers all too quickly that the code has accurately predicted nearly ever major disaster in recent history.

And, whaddaya know, there are only three tragedies remaining before the numbers run out! So Koestler makes it his mission to stop the events, which begin with a plane crashing in a field and end with what could very well be the apocalypse.

If that isn’t bad enough, Koestler’s young son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) starts seeing dark figures in the woods outside the house. They whisper to him, he says, and make him envision terrible things. Later on, they pull up in a car and drop a shiny black stone into his hands.

By the halfway point, I was surprisingly absorbed in this premise. Sure, its solemnity will probably merit chuckles from most audiences (any movie that takes itself even halfway seriously runs that risk these days), but I went happily along with the movie’s apocalyptic fervor.

Maybe it has to do with the director, Alex Proyas, who turned “The Crow” and “Dark City” into superior gothic dramas. His shadowy, angular style lends itself well to both suspense (there is genuine tension when Cage approaches the dark figures in a field) and action (a sequence involving the derailment of a subway train is amazingly well done).

The screenplay is credited to three different writers, and it shows. It begins with a perfectly intriguing premise that asks a fairly astute question—is the universe founded on free will or determinism?—and ends with spaceships and explosions and religious symbolism and the like. I don’t know; I suppose a story with the ultimate destination of certain catastrophe is bound to be excessive.

The critical response to “Knowing” has been mostly lackluster. It’s “mumbo jumbo on an apocalyptic scale,” says the Baltimore Sun, and the Boston Globe reports that it “sails boldly off the edge of the absolutely preposterous.” The New York Daily News asks, “Do you mind if the filmmakers couldn’t decide what they were making? An apocalyptic chiller? Disaster flick? Alien horror movie? Paranoid religious parable?”

I get it, and I guess I agree to a certain extent. The plot is self-righteous, the musical score is bombastic and manipulative, the story unravels at a remarkable rate in its last moments and Cage is so enamored with doomsday prophecies and cryptic numerology that he practically froths at the mouth.

But sometimes a movie just works in spite of everything. Sure, I can rattle off the film’s problems in hindsight, but I can’t deny that it held me captive in the moment. Rather than ask how or why, I’d simply like to acknowledge that it just did.

Directed by Alex Proyas. Written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden and Stiles White. Starring Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne, Lara Robinson, Nadia Townsend and D.G. Maloney. PG-13; 122m.

Bursts of violence, followed by the quiet pall of death

Gomorrah
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” is a startling film—startling in its construction, startling in its execution, startling in its unswerving depiction of organized crime in Italy. It is a very good film, one that peers into a terrifying world and refuses to look away.

The movie is a far cry from any gangster picture I’ve seen, as nothing here is eulogized or stylized: The Hollywood veneer has been chipped away, and the result is wonderfully rough around the edges.

It isn’t just that the film is inspired by true events—Roberto Saivano’s tell-all book was so controversial, he still lives under police surveillance. It is Garrone’s approach, which at first feels slim and eventually assumes a raw power: The photography here is spare, the locations grubby and under-lit and the actors unfamiliar.

Watching it, I got the feeling that Garrone had turned his camera on real people in the real world and that forces more powerful than the screenplay were controlling their destinies.

The opening scene sets the tone: We see a group of well-groomed men in a murky, upscale spa, getting tans and manicures. They joke around, make small talk, and suddenly, without warning, they are shot dead. Violence comes in unexpected, messy bursts, and it leaves an eerie quiet in its undertow: When characters are killed in this film, and quite a few of them are, the camera hangs on them in a stunned silence. It’s deeply effective.

The story explores the inner workings of the Camorra, Italy’s oldest and most powerful crime syndicate, and it follows five separate plot strands, each one illustrative of the organization’s ever-reaching grasp. The script ebbs and flows from one character to another, and although the film’s construction sometimes feels haphazard, it replicates the chaos and disorder of real life: The movie does not always give us catharsis, and its interweaving stories don’t always overlap.

We first meet Totò (Nicolo Manta), a young boy who delivers groceries for his family’s business. He witnesses a drug bust and returns a discarded gun to the criminals who lost it. They decide to induct him into their clan, and the initiation process involves the wannabe gangsters donning bulletproof vests and being shot in the chest. The bruise it leaves behind is like a badge of honor: We later see Totò as he admires his in the mirror.

There’s also Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato), a financial intermediary between the Camorra and the families of its imprisoned members. He becomes involved in clan warfare, and, in a bid to save his own life, he supplies valuable information to the begrudged that results in everyone around him getting killed. And there’s a ruthless businessman named Franco (Toni Servillo), who casually dumps toxic waste in an abandoned quarry. When one of his drivers is injured, he hires children to operate the trucks.

Also in the shuffle is Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo), a tailor who specializes in haute couture fashion. His work is overseen by the Camorra, and when he is offered a chance to tutor workers in a rival Chinese sweatshop, he accepts in order to earn extra money for his family. He travels to and from the factory in the dead of night, hunkered in a hidden compartment in the back of the owner’s car.

Probably the most intriguing segment, however, involves two young men, Marco (Marco Macor), a scrappy James Cagney type, and Ciro (Ciro Petrone), an ungainly beanpole of a kid. They long to be gangsters, and their prayers are answered when they discover a stockpile of stolen guns. They use dialogue that they’ve most certainly heard in the movies, and at one point they chase one another through an empty warehouse, wielding unloaded pistols and re-enacting scenes from “Scarface.”

Later on, they strip down to their underwear and run down the beach, firing off rounds from semi-automatic weapons at driftwood and deserted boats. Their naïveté leads to them be outsmarted by the original owners of the guns, and their final scene would have seemed more tragic had it not been so inevitable.

In fact, the whole of “Gomorrah” plays like that: Tragic, yet inevitable. A prevailing sense of dread hangs over every scene, and Garrone’s camerawork is both peaceful and unnerving: He allows shots to linger for what seems like an eternity, gradually revealing details in the frame, and at any moment we could be struck by a blast of violence, followed by the quiet pall of death.

The film reminded me of last year’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” which, like “Gomorrah,” played almost like a documentary. That picture, which chronicled a hasty and illegal abortion in 1987 Romania, was like a sucker punch in the gut, and I went back to see it again to see if its impact would be as devastating a second time (it was).

Both films are very different tonally, but they each play like grim extensions of the French New Wave movement—they are sparse, blunt and difficult to watch, but they’re both incredibly rewarding.

Note: “Gomorrah” has had a limited theatrical run since February and is currently available for viewing OnDemand.

Directed by Matteo Garrone. Written by Garrone, Roberto Saviano, Maurizio Braucci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni Di Gregorio and Massimo Gaudioso; based on the book by Saviano. Starring Gianfelice Imparato, Salvatore Cantalupo, Marco Macor, Ciro Petrone, Toni Servillo, Carmine Paternoster and Nicolo Manta. Not rated; 135m.

The Rock who went up Witch Mountain and came down as Dwayne Johnson

Race to Witch Mountain
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I really like the Rock. Oh, excuse me. I meant to say Dwayne Johnson, who, in his transition from pro wrestler to movie star, has discovered that one cannot maintain professionalism with silly nicknames. It’s probably for the best; just look at Hulk Hogan’s acting career.

Johnson has filled the void that Arnold Schwarzenegger left when his gubernatorial instincts got the best of him. Like Schwarzenegger, he’s both a legitimate action hero and a charismatic and likable leading man—he’s right at home in something like “The Scorpion King,” but he can just as easily carry a wholesome Disney film.

“Race to Witch Mountain” is his second Disney film, actually, following the innocuous “The Game Plan,” and it serves as another example of his versatility: He gets to crack off one-liners, beat up the bad guys, be a big, snuggly hero for a couple of kids and a love interest for Carla Gugino. It’s competent family entertainment, but hardly exceptional, though Johnson is good enough to make you wish he could find a vehicle worthy of his appeal.

He plays Jack Bruno, a reformed felon who now drives a cab in Vegas (I’ve never seen a cabbie as fashionably dressed as Jack, but never mind). One afternoon he finds two young siblings, Sara and Seth (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig), in his taxi, and he quickly discovers they’re aliens who have just crash-landed on Earth.

Either the film doesn’t completely explain the kids’ modus operandi or I just decided not to understand it, but I believe they’ve come to Earth because their planet is dying and they want to study our life-forms in hopes of saving their race from extinction. If they don’t get back home, Earth is doomed, but I forget exactly why. It doesn’t really matter, though, because the point of the movie is the race to Witch Mountain, where Sara and Seth’s ship has been quarantined by the government.

The movie supplies three different villains for our heroes to outrun: An evil alien called a Siphon, a PG-rated Terminator and has been programmed to stop the kids’ mission; a general with the Department of Defense (Ciarán Hinds) who wants to capture the young aliens for military tests (“They’re not children,” he growls. “They’re not even human!”); and two bumbling henchmen working for a crime lord to whom Jack is indebted.

It’s all very noisy and kinetic, only slowing down for sci-fi jargon that will baffle the kids in the audience. But “Race to Witch Mountain,” which is a reworking of two hit Disney pictures from the ‘70s, never seems to be trying very hard, and its plot is basically a series of predictable action scenes that require the characters to be chased from one location to another.

In fact, the movie falls into such a lockstep pattern that it never establishes a real sense of wonder. The filmmakers have mind-reading, time-bending extra-terrestrials at their disposal, and what do they have them do? Make spare change from the floor of a taxicab float in mid-air.

Directed by Andy Fickman. Written by Matt Lopez and Mark Bombeck; based on the book by Alexander Key. Starring Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Carla Gugino, Ciarán Hinds and Garry Marshall. PG; 98m.

Withdrawn

The International
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I wonder what Alfred Hitchcock would have thought of “The International.” I can imagine him admiring the cinematography, greatly appreciating the orchestration of a handful of scenes and then furiously taking notes on how he could have made it a better picture.

How could Hitchcock have improved the film? For one, he wouldn’t have broken the momentum of the plot by having its characters sit around and explain it to us. He also wouldn’t have denied his characters an emotional entry point, so that the audience doesn’t care about who lives or dies. And he wouldn’t have made the villain, in this case a powerful bank, a complete non-entity.

The movie opens as Clive Owen, an agent for Interpol, investigates the mysterious death of his partner. The coroner says it’s a heart attack, but Owen is convinced it’s murder. After all, they had just recently discovered that the International Bank of Business and Credit is a hub for organized crime, and Owen believes the bank wants him dead.

Naomi Watts, who plays an assistant to the New York District Attorney, is along for the ride, looking forever solemn in yet another role that does nothing to accentuate her talents. (Has she ever played a role that didn’t require her to be humiliated, distressed or violated? I can’t think of one—in this film, she’s run over by a car.)

They uncover numerous conspiracies within the bank, bodies pile up around them and the plot works its way through tapped phones, foot chases, tumult at political rallies and second shooter theories. The movie effortlessly hops from Berlin to Milan, from Luxembourg to New York City, and finally to Istanbul, and it all plays like a fairly stiff collaboration between John Grisham and John Le Carré, with hints of Costa-Gavras and “Accounting for Dummies.”

Tom Tykwer is the director, and I’ve admired his previous work: “The Princess and the Warrior” and “Heaven” were sad and beautiful, and his masterpiece “Run Lola Run” had a kinetic energy that this film so desperately needs. He has a nice eye for visuals, and although it’s refreshing to see a thriller that makes cinematography a priority (there’s no indiscernible shaky-cam photography here, which is a welcome change), it’s unacceptable that the film is as dry as it is.

To give you an idea of the screenplay’s strange construction, consider the brilliantly-staged shootout set in the Guggenheim. It’s a great action set piece and would have made a superb climax, but it’s placed somewhere in the middle of the film so that it’s followed by more than half an hour of rambling, talky material. Talk about a buzz kill.

For an action picture, “The International” is surprisingly inert, a lot of long-winded exposition and leaden plotting interspersed by the occasional moment of excitement. There are twinges of brilliance here and there, mainly due to Tykwer’s impeccable sense of style, but the script, by first-timer Eric Warren Singer, really should have been Hitchcock approved.

Directed by Tom Tykwer. Written by Eric Warren Singer. Starring Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen and Brian F. O’Byrne. R; 118m.

Not quite the exception

He’s Just Not That Into You
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“He’s Just Not That Into You” was based on a popular dating advice book, and it shows. The script shoehorns so much self-help dialogue into the script that the characters never become believable human beings and, most problematically, we never come to care about their romantic woes.

They only seem to care about are their love lives (their jobs and families are never brought up in conversation), and they exist either as helpful sources of exposition and information, as exemplars of the film’s various relationship mores or as broad personifications of the rigid gender roles in upper-middle class America.

I just realize I’ve made the movie sound more thoughtful than it is. Let me simplify it: All of the women in the film are desperate for commitment, and all of the men in are afraid of it, and the screenplay presents us with an interconnected series of characters who are always second-guessing their position in life and their selection of significant others.

Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly and Ginnifer Goodwin all work in the same office, yet they can’t possibly be efficient employees, since they just sit around discussing their relationships all day. Aniston is living with Ben Affleck, but he won’t marry her; Connelly is married to Bradley Cooper, but he isn’t keen on having children.

Goodwin plays Gigi, the single girl, and she and her co-workers (the movie doesn’t bother specifying what exactly they do) exhaustively dissect the details of her dates. Did he give you his number before you gave him yours? When he said “Nice to meet you,” was it at the beginning of the date or the end of it? How long has it been since your date, and has he called you yet?

Gigi has “needy” written all over her, and she spends most of the film staring helplessly at the phone, waiting for it to ring. She turns to a savvy bartender played by Justin Long, who has obviously read “He’s Just Not That Into You” and knows all the rules of courtship. If a guy wants to date you, he says, he’ll make it happen. If you sense that he’s not into you, move on.

There’s also Scarlett Johansson as a wannabe chanteuse who begins an affair with Cooper, Kevin Connolly as a real estate agent confused by the Johansson character’s advances and Drew Barrymore as a harried ad executive who pines for the days when our lives weren’t dictated by endless means of communication.

The all-star cast is appealing, made up of actors I admire, but the story revolves around so many of them that they hardly have a chance to develop their characters beyond mere summations of their romantic shortcomings.

“He’s Just Not That Into You” clearly has loftier ambitions than most romantic comedies, but it plays like a faint echo of a Woody Allen picture: Its use of intertwining relationships, pedantic banter, chapter titles and monologues delivered directly to the camera remind us of Allen’s wonderful “Hannah and Her Sisters,” but executed with far less wit, warmth and intelligence.

As cute and inoffensive as this film is, it never produces a moment of genuine inspiration or truly remarkable insight. Since we’re already comparing it to Woody Allen, let us also observe that “He’s Just Not That Into You” is also lacking Allen’s touch for cutting dialogue. Remember Allen’s character in “Manhattan,” whose wife left him for another woman? “I thought I took it rather well under the circumstances,” he says indifferently. “I tried to run them both over with a car.”

What’s the most memorable piece of dialogue I culled from this film? “You have an ass so hot it makes me wanna dry hump.” I’m not too into that.

Grade: C+

Directed by Ken Kwapis. Written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. Based on the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johnasson, Ginnifer Goodwin, Justin Long, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Connolly and Drew Barrymore. PG-13; 129m.

I’m your pusher, man

Push
Review by Nathan Weinbender

An expository voiceover at the beginning of “Push” tells of a race of human who harness amazing psychic powers. We’re told that the Nazis utilized them in attempts to create super-soldiers that would be physically and mentally superior to mere mortals, and now a secret division of the government has taken the reigns of the shady experiments.

Some of their genetically-altered subjects are still around, and they and their descendants walk the streets, harboring abilities beyond our comprehension.

I perked up in my seat. This concept had potential. Imagine the historical ground the script could cover. Imagine how it could toy with our preconceived notions of the limitations of reality and how it could dodge down unexpected wormholes and emerge on the other side in an entirely different place.

My high expectations were quickly dashed. “Push” quickly descends into a dumb, routine story of good versus evil, developing a murky, complicated logic that consistently contradicts itself.

After that all-too-brief explanation regarding the origins of its characters, the movie puts us right in the middle of the action, hardly giving us a chance to gather our senses. (This is the type of picture that hurtles along at a mile a minute and hopes we’ll be able to keep up and understand the plot. We don’t always.)

The psychics in “Push” all have different monikers—Pushers, Movers, Watchers, Bleeders, Sniffs, etc.—and they aren’t defined by their abilities so much as by their usefulness in getting the screenplay from one point to another.

Chris Evans, for instance, is a Mover, and he has telekinetic abilities. He lives in China, for reasons I don’t remember, and one day Dakota Fanning is at his door. She’s a Watcher, meaning she can see into the future, and although her abilities aren’t fully developed, she knows they’re both in danger of being killed; why and for what reason she isn’t completely sure.

The bad guy is played by Djimon Hounsou, who, as far as I could gather, is a government agent looking for a missing briefcase containing a powerful serum. Camilla Belle, an old flame of the Evans character who has just escaped from an institution, shows up, too: She’s a Pusher and, in the film’s most convenient plot device, can make fiction a reality.

Am I overlooking important elements of the plot? I’m sure, but does it matter? Not really. The movie races through its plot as if there’s a time limit, and I couldn’t even begin to describe who certain characters are, why they do what they do and how they’re able to figure things out when their particular abilities should not allow it. I don’t know—it all seemed to make a lot more sense to itself than it did to me.

Grade: C

Directed by Paul McGuigan. Written by David Bourla. Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle and Djimon Hounsou. PG-13; 111m.

‘Bloody’ awful in all three dimensions

My Bloody Valentine 3-D
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I stopped to look at the posters for “My Bloody Valentine 3-D” before I went into the theater. It shows a cinema filled with clean-cut teenagers, all wearing goofy 3-D glasses and orgiastic expressions of terror and glee. A giant pickaxe has broken through the screen and is swiping at the teens in the front row, no doubt an accurate representation of the film’s effects. “A 3-D ride to Hell!” the tagline screams. It looked like it could be fun.

Turns out that the posters are more exciting than the movie itself. “My Bloody Valentine” is a routine hack-and-slash gorefest that plays like a shopping spree at Cliché Mart, and the fact that it’s in middling 3-D merely underscores the fact that the filmmakers obviously had no faith in the quality of their production from the get-go.

See, 3-D is a blessing for movie producers. It’s a cheap gimmick that secures big box office intake—not only are ticket prices for 3-D features higher, but people can’t replicate the 3-D experience at home and will be sure to check it out in theaters (the movie has already grossed more than $40 million in two weeks of release).

But it also takes a lot of pressure off those poor, poor movie financiers, who normally have to worry about delivering a quality product. They can sit back and relax, because with a 3-D picture all they have to think about is what objects they can throw at the audience to make them jump in their seats.

In “My Bloody Valentine” we get gouged eyeballs, splattered blood, tree branches and a severed jaw tossed at us. Oh, and pickaxes—lots and lots of pickaxes. I grew wearier with each new plunging pickaxe shot, and I told myself that there’s certainly no way this movie could possibly muster another one. And then, whaddaya know, the bloody end of a pickaxe came tearing through the screen, and I checked my watch again.

The plot, recycled from a 1981 Canadian film, is a real yawner, involving a killer miner on the loose in a small town on Valentine’s Day, and it doesn’t have a single original thought in its beaten, bloodied head. Its only concerns are gore, nudity and the 3-D effects, which I’m sure is all its target audience cares about anyway.

But I was bored. Really, really bored. I appreciate that 3-D technology has made leaps and bounds in the last few years, but they are still far from perfecting it. 3-D movies rely heavily on their effects, but I have yet to see a 3-D feature that really benefits from the 3-D, or one that uses the technique as a way to bolster its story.

And although we’ve advanced beyond the days of cheesy cardboard glasses with red and blue lenses, we’re still being treated to the same silly effects. Will there ever be a 3-D picture where the characters don’t point gun barrels directly at the camera? It has all grown so tiresome.

Grade: D-

Directed by Patrick Lussier. Written by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith; based on a screenplay by John Beaird. Starring Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Betsy Rue, Edi Gathegi and Tom Atkins. R; 101m.

Killer cops, killer beats, killer lips

The DVD Beat
Reviews by Nathan Weinbender

WHAT TO RENT THIS WEEKEND:

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen is one of my favorite writer-directors, and the fact that I haven’t really admired anything he’s made since “Bullets Over Broadway” is distressing. But “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” although far from a masterpiece, is the best picture he’s made in a very long time. It’s a breezy romantic comedy, as light and airy as a soufflé, concerning two students (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall) vacationing in Spain and their brief but tumultuous relationship with a toothsome artist (Javier Bardem) and his eccentric ex-lover (the brilliant Penélope Cruz). Like an Eric Rohmer mosaic, the film revels in showing us beautiful people in beautiful locales—the Spanish scenery is absolutely gorgeous, as are Johansson, Hall and Cruz. But Allen doesn’t treat his characters as asides: The women especially are written with refreshing complexity, and this is Allen’s best portrait of female psychology since the great “Hannah and Her Sisters.” Read my original review here.
Grade: B+

ALSO ON DVD:

Lakeview Terrace
Neil LaBute, once a great indie provocateur, seems to have lost his edge as he’s gone mainstream. His newest film is “Lakeview Terrace,” a wannabe social commentary that plays it safe when it should be ruffling feathers. Samuel L. Jackson stars as a prejudiced cop who resents the young, interracial couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) who move in next door, and he makes their lives a living hell: He installs bright security lights that shine through their windows, he spies on them in their backyard, he slashes their tires, he assaults and humiliates and frightens them. Why does he do all of this? Well, we wouldn’t question his actions if he hadn’t been written as such a hate-spewing cartoon, but the movie’s explanation for his behavior is so clunky and superficial that it undermines the film’s attempts at legitimacy. And by the time the picture reaches its last reel, it has completely deconstructed into a contrived Hollywood thriller.
Grade: C

The Rocker
Rainn Wilson of “The Office” has his first star vehicle, a pleasant but predictable feel-good comedy about a goofball rock ‘n’ roll drummer who’s kicked out of his band right as they’re making it big (think Pete Best). After years of slumming it, he becomes a replacement drummer for his teenage nephew’s garage band, which ends up becoming massively popular. The movie is slightly better than most in its genre: It doesn’t resort to mean-spirited or gross-out humor, and I appreciate that the characters are smart and that Wilson has a shaggy dog appeal. If only the script hadn’t recycled a formulaic story that involves the band’s meteoric rise to fame, the perils of the cutthroat music industry and Wilson’s tepid romance with the underused Christina Applegate.
Grade: C

RocknRolla
You’re either with Guy Ritchie or you’re not. I’m with him, but I say that with some hesitation: He certainly knows how to shoot and style a picture, but the jury’s still out on whether he can create compelling human drama (his remake of “Swept Away,” which actually attempted pathos, was a disaster). I can’t deny, though, that I’ve been mostly entertained by his films, and, almost in spite of myself, I liked “RocknRolla,” even if it’s a pale shadow of his “Snatch,” which was itself a pale shadow of his first feature, “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” The plot is almost comically convoluted. Its characters include a powerful crime boss, a Russian real estate magnate, a sexy accountant, a drug-addicted rock star and a gang of foolhardy bandits. It plows along at a mile a minute, exploring London ganglands, the music industry and the art world, and it’s told in an aggressive, self-aware manner that excels in some scenes and becomes aggravating in others. But the movie mostly works—as a comedy, as a crime caper and as an example of cheeky, excessive style.
Grade: B

You better get off his lawn

Gran Torino
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Clint Eastwood is both the best and worst aspect of “Gran Torino.” Eastwood the actor is really terrific here, utilizing his legendary screen persona—leathery skin, squinty eyes, intimidating stature—to create a protagonist that at first seems like a broad caricature and slowly evolves into a fascinating human character.

Eastwood the director, on the other hand, doesn’t know the meaning of the word “subtlety,” and here he has the tendency to overemphasize elements of the story that are already obvious. It’s dramatic overkill.

His approach to directing has always been a simple one, and like David Mamet, John Sayles or Mike Leigh, he is a point-and-shoot filmmaker, focusing more on performance and plotting than on wild directorial flourishes. His films are usually pretty restrained, but “Gran Torino” feels as though it was written entirely in italics, as if Eastwood didn’t trust the audience to understand the picture’s major themes.

Take, for instance, a sequence in which Eastwood, playing an old curmudgeon named Walt Kowalski, interrupts a group of black teenagers assaulting a young Asian girl. He curses at them, threatens them with a gun, throws around a few racial slurs, growlingly pontificates about how the world has gone to hell and how punks like them have caused it.

Although Eastwood is magnetic in his delivery, the scene plays out in such a didactic way that, much like in the manipulative, sermonizing, simple-minded “Crash,” it doesn’t feel as though screenwriter Nick Schenk is using this film as an outlet for real human drama: This movie is like a soapbox upon which its characters vocalize various social, racial and political issues.

Now, I don’t object to what the film is saying, but to how it is being said: “Gran Torino” sometimes feels more like a thesis than it does a movie, and although it certainly isn’t ignoble, it makes its points with all the nuance of a term paper.

But there are some wonderful scenes in the picture, and they’re so good they made me wish that Eastwood had taken the script and gone off in a completely different direction with it. The most effective parts of “Gran Torino” focus on Walt’s relationship with the neighbor kids—the smart, confident Sue (Ahney Her) and the introverted Thao (Bee Vang), both of Hmong descent.

Walt, quietly devastated by his wife’s recent death and closed off from his family, is uncomfortable and unfamiliar with their culture. But he finds them warm and inviting and is soon drawn into their world. He calls them “chinks” and “gooks” and “slant eyes,” but they become, if you can believe it, more like terms of endearment than personal insults.

Sue, who is brazen and clear-headed, first adapts to Walt’s closed-mindedness. When he warns her to stay away from his dog, she corrects him: Her people only eat cats. Later on, Walt befriends Thao, who can hardly make eye contact with anyone, and teaches him how to be confident in the presence of other people.

Those moments are a joy to watch, and Eastwood and his actors find just the right tone. But those scenes are flanked by eye-rolling melodrama involving a local gang’s attempts to compromise the innocence of Sue and Thao, and Walt saying enough is enough and taking matters into his own hands.

The middle segments of “Gran Torino” are almost at odds with the rest of the film: Imagine a thoughtful, compassionate, humble novel interrupted halfway through with a long chapter typed entirely in capital letters. It’s jarring how Eastwood approaches the dramatic material here—every Big Moment is telegraphed with overbearing music and obvious close-ups.

And Eastwood employs superficial Christ imagery at a key moment in the film, and not only has it been shoehorned into the scene for cheap dramatic effect, but it distracts us from the realism of the scene and diminishes the power of the scene.

It’s a shame that Eastwood didn’t trust “Gran Torino” to be a simple character study, or that Walt’s relationship with the kids was far more interesting than the forced melodrama of the gang warfare and the stilted monologues of moral grandstanding. This picture has interesting elements all around the fringes of its story, but it seriously sags in the middle.

Grade: B-

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Nick Schenk. Starring Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Christopher Carley, Brian Harley and John Carroll Lynch. R; 116m.

The best films of 2008

2007 was such a great year for film, offering so many creative, surprising and intelligent pictures, that it was no shock that 2008 was a disappointing one.

It was especially disappointing for American cinema. On my 2007 list, only two (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “Atonement”) were foreign productions; this year, half of the list is made up of films from countries other than the U.S.

But to say 2008 was a bad year would not be fair, and despite the fact that very few films really jumped out and grabbed me, the ones that did were really terrific.

Looking at the following films, most of which I have revisited for second and third times, I am astounded by the broad range of genres they cover—character studies, historical biopics, old-fashioned underdog stories; a quirky comedy, an enthralling documentary, an ambiguous morality play, a Romanian tragedy, a Scandinavian horror film and the best Hollywood blockbuster in years.

These are not the only great films of 2008, but they are the ones that moved, captivated and entertained me the most.

10. Happy-Go-Lucky
Reflect for a moment: How many movies have you seen in which the protagonist is simply, truly happy? Mike Leigh’s pictures are often dirges, dreary portraits of middle-class British life. But this one, despite harboring some dark undertones, is a mostly buoyant comedy about a woman who tries to turn dark clouds into rainbows. She is played by Sally Hawkins in the breakout performance of the year, and she is a joy to watch, turning a potentially annoying character into a lovable one.

9. The Visitor
Thomas McCarthy’s “The Visitor” is a small-scale picture with tremendous emotional resonance. It is an unexpectedly moving picture, with veteran character actor Richard Jenkins making a real impression as a bull-headed college professor who befriends two illegal immigrants and embraces African drumming. The story could have been heavy-handed in lesser hands, but the film is acted and written with such conviction that it pulls you in, despite the fact that it is deceptively simple.

8. The Dark Knight
Did anybody miss seeing “The Dark Knight” during its theatrical run? Did anybody dislike it? It was that rare film that seemed to unite everybody—it was morally complex and dark, a thoughtful meditation on good versus evil, but, most importantly, it was damned entertaining, with some of the most sensational action sequences I’ve seen. Here we see superhero movies developing into a mature art form, and this film represents the height of the genre so far. I doubt it will ever be topped.

7. Doubt
Here’s a movie in which every scene could come with a “for your consideration” disclaimer at the bottom of the screen. “Doubt” is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, but it rarely seems stagy, and yet it still captures the spellbinding power of watching a live performance. Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams are all reliable actors, and they are simply stellar. But it is Viola Davis, whose performance lasts for barely ten minutes, who really strikes a chord—she finds a quiet humanity that stands out amidst the fire-and-brimstone intensity of the rest of the film. If ever there was a film to see, ponder and discuss heatedly, “Doubt” is it.

6. Man on Wire
If “Man on Wire” had been told in the format of a fiction film, nobody would believe it. Such a sensational story could only happen in real life, and this look at wirewalker Philippe Petit’s feat of walking between the towers of the World Trade Center is breathtaking. Petit is an energetic narrator, director James Marsh re-creates images as dreamy and striking as Errol Morris, and the “plot” unfolds so unpredictably that you could liken it to a heist picture and not be far off. This is the best feature documentary of 2008.

5. Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle is a diverse, edgy filmmaker, but none of his movies have struck the same chord as “Slumdog Millionaire.” This is the Little Film That Could, the story of a poor kid from India who captures the country’s attention during his stint on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” this is an old-fashioned rags-to-riches plot approached in a way we’ve never seen before. Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto, relative newcomers to acting, are revelatory in their roles, and the plot moves along with unrelenting energy.

4. Milk
Gus Van Sant, another veteran director, has hit his highest mark with this exhilarating movie, a true-life portrait of Harvey Milk, a San Francisco man who became the first openly gay political official, and who later became a martyr for the gay community after his murder. Sean Penn plays Milk, and although we know he is the best actor of his generation, we are not expecting how uncannily he embodies this man, how brilliantly he brings his quirks and courage and flaws to life. Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Diego Luna round out one of the best ensemble casts in recent years. “Milk” is a moving evocation of a great man’s legacy.

3. Let the Right One In
Here’s one that should never have worked: A Swedish film about the relationship between a young social outcast and a twelve-year-old vampire. But “Let the Right One In” is an invigorating picture, superbly cast, impeccably photographed and written and acted with more insight and heart than you might expect. Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson are the stars, and although they have never acted before, they capture a vulnerability and honesty that no amount of theatrical training can imbue in a performer. This movie excited me when I first saw it, and I wanted to shout its praises to everyone I knew. See this movie before Hollywood has a chance to remake it.

2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Winner of the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, this bleak Romanian drama was released in the U.S. way back in January. It was the first great film of 2008, and it was only outranked in the final days of December. It is a wrenching film, set in 1987 during the “Golden Age” of Romanian politics, as a college student helps her sheepish roommate arrange for an illegal abortion; over the course of one very long day, the responsibility falls squarely on her shoulders. Director Cristian Mungiu photographs the film in a way that makes us a part of the action, and it is so unflinching that it forces us to watch on when we want to turn our eyes away. “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” is not an approachable picture—it will take everything out of you—but it is as potent as any film I saw this year.

1. The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” is a testament to the power of simple storytelling. The title says it all, doesn’t it? What is the movie about? A wrestler. That wrestler is Randy “The Ram” Robinson, who has fallen from glory since he hit the height of his career in the mid-‘80s. Now he works in the warehouse of a supermarket, lives out of his van and is forced to retire early after a heart attack. The movie is also a testament to career comebacks, and in this case we see Mickey Rourke making himself relevant again. His performance here is nearly beyond words. He brings a tenderness and sincerity to the role that I can’t imagine anyone else duplicating—this is not the case of an actor preening before a camera, but of an actor unapologetically baring his soul before us. I can’t readily recall a movie in which an actor so clearly relates with the character he is playing: When Rourke tells his estranged daughter that he’s “a broken-down piece of meat,” is that the character or the actor speaking? I think it’s a little of both, which makes “The Wrestler” such an emotional, personal experience.

I also greatly admired “Burn After Reading,” the Coen brothers’ goofy follow-up to their superb “No Country for Old Men;” Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” the true story of child abduction and police corruption in 1940s California; the fantasy “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a tale of love, loss and the inevitability of time, directed with great panache by David Fincher; “Frozen River,” a low-budget masterpiece with a knockout lead performance by Melissa Leo; the dark comedy “In Bruges,” which will no doubt find a cult following over the years; “Iron Man,” the second-best superhero picture of 2008, and the film that officially marks Robert Downey Jr.’s comeback; Jonathan Demme’s divisive “Rachel Getting Married,” which features a remarkable Anne Hathaway performance; David Gordon Green’s overlooked “Snow Angels,” a haunting melodrama about love, death and deception in a small town; “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” a charming romantic comedy and the best film Woody Allen has made in years; and the Pixar gem “WALL-E,” which stands head and shoulders above any other family film this year.

Some great foreign films include “The Band’s Visit,” a charming Israeli comedy about a police band stranded in a small town overnight; Ireland’s “Boy A,” about a young man coming to terms with a murder he committed as a child; the German Oscar winner “The Counterfeiters,” the fascinating story of concentration camp inmates who assisted the Nazis in a failed economic swindle; and the Turkish film “The Edge of Heaven,” a moving, meditative character study that follows a college professor who goes looking for the daughter of the prostitute his father mistakenly killed. And among the year’s best documentaries are “Encounters at the End of the World,” Werner Herzog’s beautifully photographed study of the major scientific undertakings in Antarctica; Martin Scorsese’s concert picture “Shine a Light,” which proves the Rolling Stones as relevant and electric as ever; Errol Morris’ “Standard Operating Procedure,” a harrowing look at the Abu Grahib prison scandal; and the crowd-pleaser “Young @ Heart,” about a choir of rock-and-roll senior citizens.

Up against the ropes

The Wrestler
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Sometimes a performance is so good that you can sense the actor throwing everything he has at the screen. You can see him putting his heart and soul and blood and sweat and tears into every line of dialogue and every nuance, and you are held captive by the very fact that an actor can convey such emotion.

Such is the experience of watching Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.” Yes, that Mickey Rourke—the go-to tough guy in the ‘80s, relegated to pointless supporting roles in the ‘90s, now completely resurrected as an actor of tremendous power. It is such an immersive, hypnotic performance, and you can sense that Rourke’s own personal anguish and professional hardships have been siphoned into the role.

He plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a professional wrestler who was on top of the world in 1985. Twenty years later, he’s a has-been, a joke, the answer to a trivia question. He makes special appearances at rec centers and fan conventions. He lives in a trailer park but has to sleep in his van because he can’t afford the rent. He is not as fulfilled as he once was, but the work he does have gives him fleeting moments of joy, and he hurls himself, both literally and figuratively, into his job.

A brief aside: Professional wrestling is an intrinsically fascinating enterprise, I think. It is patently fake, and the fans are aware of it, and the wrestlers in the ring are self-aware actors who know how to throw a punch and fall and land just so. (See the fascinating documentary “Beyond the Mat,” and you’ll learn that the WWF superstars are sweet and non-confrontational, and that they do what they do because they look imposing and have an engaging presence in the ring.)

The strange thing, though, is that the audiences at wrestling matches approach the event with the utmost earnestness, even though the wrestlers themselves are broadly sketched symbols of male machismo and products of blatant self-mockery. I have seen wrestling programs that are funny in their brazen, unabashed silliness—can you believe such a strange activity can draw audiences in the thousands? I have never seen the crowds at any of those events burst into laughter or knowing chuckles: They are immersed in a universe of good versus evil, where the outcome is always predetermined.

That has tragic undertones in itself: Randy’s victories can only be dictated by a series of scripted conflicts. He does not win because he is the better wrestler; he is not the harbinger of his own fate. Perhaps that is why his life is in such a shambles—he has always been a champion wrestler, but he never has to work for it. Sure, he bleaches his hair and works out and tans his body, but none of that matters when he steps into the ring: He will win no matter what.

Randy struggles to get by. He works part-time as a supermarket box boy, where he is relentlessly insulted by his pipsqueak boss. He has an estranged daughter, now grown up and played by Evan Rachel Wood, with whom he tries to reconcile but who does not want to see him back. He is a regular at the local strip joint and falls in love with one of the dancers, Pam (Marisa Tomei), who has clearly had a string of deadbeat men in her life and senses that Randy has a pure heart. But, she tells him, she can’t have relationships with customers.

The story is pretty familiar, but rarely have I seen a well-worn blueprint so invigorated by its performances: They have taken the old “Rocky” formula, which has been worked over time and time again, and have actually improved upon it. One of 2008’s other masterpieces, “Slumdog Millionaire,” also relied on plot developments that would normally be considered clichés, but it approached them in a new, fresh way. “The Wrestler” is another triumph of old-school storytelling, proof that what you say is not important, it’s how you say it.

Scene after scene in this picture is just right, acted in a way that people really act, written in a way that people really talk. In two of the movie’s best sequences, Randy convinces first Pam and then his daughter to go out with him. “We’ll just have one beer,” he tells Pam, and she accepts, yet when he makes his moves on her, watch how she handles it: I can imagine her response seeming phony as written, but Tomei handles it with such hard-bitten intensity that it works.

Later, when Randy and his daughter visit the old pier, they walk through the long-deserted carnival fairgrounds, and he opens up to her in a moment of heartbreaking sincerity. “I’m a broken-down piece of meat,” he says. “I deserve to be alone. I just don’t want you to hate me.” (I’m certain they’ll use this clip, which has a raw power, at the Oscars, where Rourke will no doubt be nominated.) Both Tomei and Wood are phenomenal here, playing women who love Randy, but find a hard time needing him. They are two of our best working actresses.

The last reel of the film, where the spell of the film could have easily come crashing down in sloppy sentiment, is surprisingly masterful. Randy has had a heart attack, and the doctors advise him to never wrestle again. When he is scheduled for a rematch with an anti-American wrestler named Ayatollah (we learn that their first fight twenty years ago was legendary), he accepts. Giving up is not an option.

Now, what follows is a series of events that could have been—no, should have been—cloying, trite, predictable and heavy-handed, yet everything miraculously falls into place. You know what will happen: Randy will make a moving speech to the crowd, he will struggle through the fight, his heart will start to give out, Pam will make an obligatory appearance, etc. Yet Rourke’s performance is so nakedly poignant that we buy everything, and the very last shot of the film is better than anything I could have expected (and the transition to Bruce Springsteen’s haunting closing credits song is really sensational).

Darren Aronofsky, who made “Pi” and “Requiem for a Dream,” is an edgy filmmaker, but here, working with Robert D. Siegel’s no-frills script, he puts all gimmickry aside and simply lets the story play out. It feels like real life, unimpeded by Acting or Writing or Directing, which, I think, takes more courage and artistry than it does to put obscure images and impenetrable symbolism up on the screen.

But Mickey Rourke is the heart of the movie, and he is so convincing at every moment that we believe this character really exists. We want so desperately for him to succeed, yet we don’t necessarily agree with his choices in life, nor with the consequences that his line of work entails. But we sit there in awe, not only of the resiliency of this man, not only of the control that Rourke demonstrates in his performance, but of the simple, honest power of this film. “The Wrestler” is a perfect movie, and I think it is the best picture of the year.

Grade: A+

Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Written by Robert D. Siegel. Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Mark Margolis and Todd Barry. R; 109m.