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Here are selected minireviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically.
Some reviews originate at other newspapers that do not award star ratings.
“88 Minutes”
Suspense drama. * R. “88 Minutes” is a sleazy cheeseball movie that depends on a ticking time bomb for what little tension it evokes. That time bomb would be a death threat phoned in to Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino), a forensic psychologist who specializes in nailing serial killers. He’s lecturing to a class when he gets the call: You’ll be dead in 88 minutes. And so the film plays out in real time. (Tom Long, Detroit News) 118 minutes
“21”
Drama ** PG-13. It isn’t about luck. It’s about calculation. Keep that in mind when thinking about this by-the-numbers adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s much richer bestseller about a group of MIT students who put a hurting on the casinos of Vegas. Jim Sturgess (lovely Jude in “Across the Universe”) is Ben Campbell, a numbers savant and MIT undergrad who can’t make the financial numbers work to get into Harvard Med School, without a full-ride scholarship. Kate Bosworth is Jill the just as bright student who recruites him for professor Micky Rosa’s card-counting sojourns to sin city. For all its high- stakes hand signals and mathematical tricks, “21” becomes a lot more compelling when Kevin Spacey (as the groups leader) and Laurence Fishburne, as a casino security expert, face off in what is more chess match than card game. (Kennedy) 118 minutes
“The Band’s Visit”
Cross-cultural comedy. ***1/2 PG-13. The movie follows the misadventures of Egypt’s Alexandria Ceremonial Police Band as they arrive in an isolated Israeli desert town for a concert. It’s an unlikely place for a show — extremely unlikely, as it turns out. Misdirected at the airport, the band has gone to the wrong locale, and there’s nothing to be done about it since the last bus has already left for the day. This sets up a series of evening encounters between the band members and locals that begins with miscommunication and end with cultural détente. (Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News) 89 minutes
“The Bank Job”
Heist caper. **1/2 R. A solidly built and entertaining Brit B-movie about a heist that goes wrong. And right. It’s an elaborate caper, with odd but oddly believable crooks, compelling villains and loads of swell British slang circa 1971. And the kicker? It really happened. Heist-picture clichés such as the divide-the-loot session, the kidnap and torture of gang members and “the handoff” are managed with aplomb. The film doesn’t cover much ground that 100 years of heist movies haven’t been over before. But as the mistakes and blunders turn deadly, and the outcome grows more and more doubtful we begin to care who lives, who dies and who will end up doing time for “The Bank Job.” (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 110 minutes
“Caramel”
Chick flick. *** PG. This Lebanese beauty salon is filled with neurotic types like Jamale, an aging actress desperate to look younger, and frumps like Rima, in need of a makeover; but, pleasingly, it takes a somewhat more realistic tack in portraying the lives of its workers and patrons. It’s touching and extremely sad and demonstrates how clear-eyed writer and director Labaki actually is on the limitations of beauty shops and happy endings. (Mary F. Pols, Contra Costa Times) 95 minutes
“Counterfeiters”
Holocaust drama. *** Not rated. The film sets a compelling moral dilemma around the story of a counterfeiting ring operated by prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin during World War II. The film is based on the observations of professional printer Adolf Burger, who was incarcerated at Sachsenhausen along with other Jewish typesetting experts, graphic designers and printers who are set to work reproducing the British pound and the U.S. dollar so that the Nazis can flood the Allies’ economies and continue to finance their war effort. (Connie Ogle, McClatchy Newspapers) 98 minutes
“Drillbit Taylor”
Coming of Age Comedy. ** PG-13. As the titular homeless hustler hired by three McKinley High freshman to be their bodyguard, Owen Wilson often gives the camera something touching to work with. Concave-chested Wade (Nate Hartley) and pudgy pal Ryan (Troy Gentile) are likeable best friends in what feels like a “Superbad” knock-off for the PG-13 set. David Dorfman is Emmit, the geeky minnow even more vulnerable to bullying then Wade and Ryan. Leslie Mann is the teacher taken with Drillbit’s substitute teacher guise. The school’s predators are played by Alex Frost and Josh Peck. Which leads us to a bedeviling problem: Frost’s feral portrayal bullies the comedy. His sociopath really belongs in another movie. (Kennedy) 102 minutes
“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”
Documentary. * PG. Droning funnyman Ben Stein monkeys around with evolution with the new documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a cynical attempt to sucker Christian conservatives into thinking they’re losing the “intelligent design” debate because of academic “prejudice.” “Expelled” is a full-on, amply budgeted Michael Moore-styled mockery of evolution, a film that dresses creationist crackpottery in an “intelligent design” leisure suit and tries to make the fact that it’s not given credence in schools a matter of “academic freedom.”(Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 90 minutes
“First Saturday in May”
Documentary. ** Not rated. “The First Saturday in May” is a slick documentary following six thoroughbred trainers as they approach that festival of horseflesh called the Kentucky Derby, with hopes aflame. It’s hardly a muckraking piece but more a celebration of racing at the high end and the extremely prosperous folks who play it.(Stephen Hunter, Washington Post)96 minutes
“Flawless”
Heist film. **1/2 PG-13. There’s nothing swinging about the 1960s London where Demi Moore, as an ambitious diamond company exec named Laura Quinn, finds herself in the engaging, if flawed, “Flawless.” This is a heist picture, a feminist revenge fantasy and an excuse for Michael Caine to re-deploy his Cockney accent as a wily old janitor, “Flawless” finds the actress in sharp, smart business attire, using a mid-Atlantic accent (she’s a U.S. ex-pat, educated at Oxford and long residing in England), and spending her off hours alone in her apartment, having a meal, a cigarette and listening to jazz. (Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer) 100 minutes
“Forbidden Kingdom”
Martial arts fantasy. **1/2 PG-13. The good news: Titans Jet Li and Jackie Chan team up for the first time. The less steller news: Director Rob Minkoff’s fanstasy adventure (written by John Fusco) about a Boston kung-fu flick geek named Jason and his journey to a mystical realm is a watered-down brew of West meets East. Affable Michael Angarano feels miscast as Jason, a protagonist whose heroic journey never seems deserved. Chan and Li play Jason’s mentors in the legendary epoch of the Monkey King. Chan also hobbles around as Old Hop, owner of the Chinatown shop where Jason discovers an ancient staff. Fans know of Chan’s muscular slapstick antics. So it’s Li who surprises. The actor charms as both the trickster Monkey King and the Silent Monk charged with freeing him from the stone statue he was encased in by rival the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou). Liu Yifei and Li Bing Bing also star. (Kennedy) 113 minutes
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”
Animated. **1/2 PG-13. Peter Bretter, a big, soft homebody who writes music for TV shows and has for the last five years been the boyfriend of hottie actress Sarah Marshall. Sarah announces she’s breaking up with him. He mopes. He cries. The guy’s a mess. Finally he decides to get away from his woes by vacationing at a posh Hawaiian resort — only to find that Sarah and her new boyfriend, pompous British rock star Aldous Snow, are checked into the same hotel. “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” has a workable if unoriginal setup, but as a story it’s like one of those hotel guests sitting in an inflated inner tube and drifting in lazy circles. (Robert W. Butler, McClatchy Newspapers) 90 minutes
“Girls Rock!”
Documentary. *** PG. Teens Misty and Laura, eight-year-olds Palace and Amelia, are the power chords to Shane King and Arne Johnson’s kicking fun documentary about a stint at the Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for girls 8-18, now playing exclusively at Neighborhood Flix. Liz Canning’s clever animated sequences provide a “riot grlll” history about the power of making noise, making music. But the movie’s heart lies with its compelling foursome. They are hugely quotable and endearing for their candor and confusion. “She likes death metal and bunnies” says Laura’s friend back in Oklahoma City. Indeed, the teen, who happens to be Korean and adopted, is a walking, riffing, thrash-dancing embodiment of the notion that the young say contradictory things and wedge many aching truths into those opposites. (Kennedy) 90 minutes
“The Grand”
Improv comedy. **1/2 R. Woody Harrelson plays the main character, a troubled guy who enters the Grand, a poker tournament, hoping to win the money to save the bankrupt Vegas casino he owns. Harrelson’s aimless, self-indulgent ramblings never amount to much, but luckily, the other participants in “The Grand” all are funny and distinctive. The best being Chris Parnell, who creates the most memorable character, a “Rain Man”-like mama’s boy who dreams of owning a house “with swiveled mirror passageways and a labyrinth” and who matter-of-factly says the most outrageous things, as if he’s not aware they’re coming out of his mouth. Parnell has plenty of good company but he alone would make “The Grand” worth a gamble. (Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press) 104 minutes
“Holly”
Docu-drama. **1/2 R. This well-meaning drama takes place in Phnom Penh’s notorious red-light district, K11, and was designed to promote awareness of child prostitution. The use of authentic Cambodian locations adds immeasurably to the film’s emotional landscape; the filmmakers deserve credit for capturing the physicality of K11 as a suffocating maze of illicit activity. Yet “Holly” never achieves the dramatic clarity it needs to put its human suffering into perspective. (Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times) 113 minutes
“Horton Hears a Who!”
Animated joy. ***1/2 G. It is here! It is here! It is here! Forget those live-action Seuss flicks with their wink-wink, nudge-nudge moments. Jim Carrey, Steve Carell and directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Marino have given us an animated ride worthy the good doctor. Carrey gives famous pachyderm Horton a truly heroic heart. Carell gives anxiety a funny face as the father of 97 Whos and mayor of the threatened Who-ville. Carol Burnett provides the pot-stirring oratory of Kangeroo. A person is a person no matter how small, indeed. And the filmmakers prove a wonderful film is a wonderful film no matter how G. (Kennedy) 88 minutes
“The Kite Runner”
Literary drama. *** PG-13. The movie adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s much-loved best seller “The Kite Runner” does decent, if sometimes ham-fisted, service to the novel’s troubled characters, surefire themes and evocation of the tragic fate of Afghanistan over the past 20 years. The story breaks down into three basic sections. In 1970s Kabul, privileged Amir (remarkable Afghan child actor Zekiria Ebrahimi) is expert at a game in which kite flyers vie to cut one another’s strings but otherwise is an unassertive wimp. His best friend is the family servant’s son Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, ditto on the remarkable front), who chases down the fallen kites Amir wins and fights for his pal’s honor. This gets Hassan in trouble with some neighborhood bullies, who mete out a terrible punishment that Amir secretly witnesses. (Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News) 122 minutes
“Leatherheads”
Sports romantic comedy. **1/2 PG-13. Slapstick meets screwball in “Leatherheads,” an amiable valentine to an era of breakneck repartee, bathtub booze and anything-goes gridiron warfare starring George Clooney. The setting is 1925 Duluth, Minn., home base of the Bulldogs, a rough-and-ready pro football team in an era when pay was low, glamour was nil and rulebooks were rarely consulted. Then Princeton football star Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford is enticed to join the teetering Bulldogs for a percentage of the gate, promoting him as the sport’s first superstar. Following Rutherford is Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger), a feisty Chicago Tribune reporter. Clooney, who co-wrote the film (along with Denver’s Rick Reilly), is unabashed in his affection for period Americana and old-school filmmaking, and recreates it with impressive technical polish. (Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune) 114 minutes
“Nim’s Island”
Fantasy adventure. **1/2 PG. Nim (Abigail Breslin) lives a regular Nim’s Family Robinson life on her own deserted isle in “Nim’s Island,” the reasonably delightful new kids’ fantasy film based on Wendy Orr’s novel. She swings among the trees, spends her days with her pals — a sea lion, a pelican and a lizard — and her nights with her books and her dad, the marine biologist (Gerard Butler). This colorful, winning comedy allows the plucky little girl to fend off rapacious tourists who invade her island as she waits for her shipwrecked dad to return — or her literary hero (Jodie Foster) to come to her rescue. Foster may be at sea when it comes to the comedy (upstaged by a sea lion, a first for her), but she is a perfectly credible agoraphobic. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel)95 minutes
“Planet B-boy”
Dancing documentary. *** Not rated. Pay homage to break-dancer Wayne “Frosty Freeze” Frost (who died in early April) with a visit to the Mayan Theatre for Benson Lee’s globe-trotting documentary about five crews headed from Osaka, Seoul, Las Vegas and Paris to compete in the Battle of the Year. Touching interviews, often of a dancer and his befuddled or supportive parent, get at the personal drive involved in the demanding endeavor but also the cultural wrinkles. The breakdancing practiced by these adherents shares a vigorous language, but also expresses dialects. The members of French group Phase T are liquid dancers; 2004 champs Gamblerz, from Seoul, pride themselves on technically forceful routines. Osaka’s Ichigeki is full of showstopping innovators. “Planet B-Boy” makes a celebratory, thoughtful argument that rap wasn’t the only form of hip-hop culture to capture the imagination of the young in other countries. It just captured the market. Consider this is a mild correction. (Kennedy)95 minutes
“Priceless”
Romantic comedy. **PG-13. Cocktail chemistry and raw calculation initially bring the lovers in “Priceless” together. Whether something more profound will deepen their bond is, of course, a staple of romantic comedy. This French import (with English subtitles) is no exception. Nor is it exceptional. Audrey Tautou is Irène, a lovely piece of arm candy working her wiles at the classier hotels on the French Riviera. Gad Elmaleh plays smitten, dogged hotel employee Jean. Marie-Christine Adam intrigues as Madeleine, the wealthy older woman who rescues Jean by putting him on an equal footing with Irène’s gigolette. Granted, the improbable is the purview of comedy. But instead of waiting for that movie-magical moment when we’re convinced Irène and Jean do belong together, we’re more curious to see how director Pierre Salvadori plans to make us believe this flimsy make-believe. Pulling that off would indeed be priceless. (Kennedy) 104 minutes
“Smart People”
Family dramedy. ** R. Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) teaches Victorian literature at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Or rather he goes through the motions. Lawrence is a burnout case, a bearded, potbellied grouch who is alternately bored or irritated by his students and he never got over the death of his wife years earlier. An accident sends him to the ER, where his doc is Sarah Jessica Parker, who was one of his students who had a cruch on him. His daughter (Ellen Page), a tart-tongued high-school senior who embraces academic excellence and political conservatism but seems never to have experienced much of life. New to the household is Lawrence’s adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), an affable slacker looking for a place to crash after the collapse of his latest get-rich-quick scheme. (Robert W. Butler, McClatchy Newspapers)95 minutes
“Street Kings”
Police thriller. ** R. Keanu Reeves’s Tom Ludlow is a gunslinging undercover detective driven but also dulled by grief. When he becomes a suspect in the killing of a good cop (his one-time partner), he plunges into the murk of this volatile yet bland neo-noir about corruption and compromised honor in the LAPD. Watching David Ayer’s police thriller (cowritten by James Ellroy of “L.A. Confidential” fame), one suspects there’s little need for villians with LAPD’s Ad Vice squad, headed by Capt. Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker) roaming the streets. Hugh Laurie plays Internal Affairs Capt. Biggs. Chris Evans also stars. And Cedric the Entertainer makes an amusing cameo in a orange Eldorado. (Kennedy)107 minutes
“Run, Fatboy, Run”
Romantic comedy. **1/2 PG-13. Impossibly likeable, writer-actor Simon Pegg (“Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”) plays exhaustingly immature Dennis in this minor romantic comedy that marks the capable directorial debut of “Friends'” David Schwimmer. Five years earlier, Dennis jilted his expectant and expecting fiancée (Thandie Newton), now he’s a security guard and dad with visitation rights. He wants more. And in trying to compete with the physically, fiscally superior rival Whit (Hank Azaria) for Libby and his son’s love, he declares he’s going to run the same charity marathon Whit’s entered in. Hence the title. “Run, Fatboy, Run” isn’t going to win any prizes for fresh questions. But it’s just fleet enough to hold its own in the middle of the pack. (Kennedy) 100 minutes
“Shine a Light”
Concert movie. *** PG-13. The Rolling Stones. Martin Scorsese. That combo should have made for the concert film to end ’em all. “Shine a Light” isn’t it (not that there’s such a thing, really). But there’s satisfaction to be had in this dazzling dance of cameras and band, shot at New York City’s Beacon theater on the occasion of Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday. While far superior to 1991’s “At the Max,” the film’s no “Gimme Shelter.” But then, 2008 is not 1969. And if you pull back from the whirlwind that is the Stones in their performance zone, this film says somethings about the zeitgeist and rock n’ roll, about the age of professionalism. You don’t keep a band going, and going, without business stamina and smarts. Mick Jagger remains the band’s energizer sex bomb, with a mouth that predates Angelina Jolie’s pout by three decades. Charlie Watts has aged in ways that make quick sense. His bandmates inspire metaphor, jibes, awe. With a voice less agile than his hips, Jagger is still a force. His gyrating hasn’t become parody. It’s humbling. (Kennedy) 122 minutes
“Stop-Loss”
Soldiers’ stories. *** R. Staff Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) and Sgt. Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) return to Texas after tours of duty in Aghanistan and Iraq. They’re ready to begin their lives anew when King is “stop-lossed.” Not only will the decorated soldier not be getting out, he’s to be redeployed to Iraq. With the help of a life-long friend Michele (Abbie Cornish) — Steve’s fiancee — King goes AWOL. Despite occasional lapses into unneeded melodrama, the film is a well acted excursion into the challenges of coming home. Ciarán Hinds and Linda Emond provide a sturdy foundaton as Kings’ parents. (Kennedy) 112 minutes
“Under the Same Moon”
Immigration drama. *** PG-13. “La Misma Luna” is an emotional and entertaining road picture about a little boy who crosses the Mexican border into the U.S. on a quest to find his mom. She works “without papers” and off the books in Los Angeles. It’s a warm drama that humanizes America’s illegal immigration debate even as it sentimentally stacks the deck in favor of the undocumented. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 109 minutes
“Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?”
Documentary travelogue. PG-13. In Morgan Spurlock’s compelling if self-indulgent travelogue investigation, he of the “Super-Size Me” antics embarks on gutsy, goofy sojourn to countries linked in some fashion to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda: Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan. The director uses the action film and the video game as conceits for his lone protagonist in search of the world’s most wanted man. In a repeated gesture that gets tired quickly, the expectant father also cuts away to pregnant wife Alexandra Jamieson. Do you really have to be a parent to have an epiphany about the dire antagonisms roiling the globe? Still it’s Spurlock’s engaging time spent talking to folk on the streets, in their homes, in their mosques that suggests a deeply common truth: Deprivation bites. It makes people vulnerable. It humiliates them. It angers. So how do you say “It’s the economy stupid” in Urdu, Arabic, Pashto? (Kennedy) 85 minutes
“The Year My Parents Went on Vacation”
Sentimental drama. Not rated. Twelve-year-old Mauro’s mom and dad have a real problem: They’ve gotten on the bad side of the junta in power at the time. Before going into hiding, they drop off Mauro at his paternal grandfather’s apartment building. One thing they forgot to check, though: Is Grandpa still alive? As it turns out, no. The neighbors don’t quite know what to do about the abandoned kid with the untraceable parents, but after some initial kvetching they rise to the task, and affectionate bonding is spread all around. This is one of those adorable foreign kid/cranky old folks heartwarmers.(Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News) 104 minutes
