Movies: New and Noteworthy

COMING THIS WEEK

By Steven Rea

American Honey British director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights) crisscrosses the American Midwest in this verité road pic about a gang of wayfaring, weed-smoking, tattooed teens going door to door with a magazine-subscription scam. Newcomer Sasha Lane stars. Shia LaBeouf is one of the few trained thespians along for the ride. R

The Battle of Algiers The documentary-style account of the three-year conflagration between French soldiers and North African freedom fighters in the streets of the Algerian capital stands as one of the landmark works of political cinema, now digitally restored. Nominated for three Oscars and as relevant today as it was on its controversial release 50 years ago (it was banned in France for years), the film deployed a cast of nonprofessional actors (many veterans of the conflict itself) and seethes with energy, authenticity, and power. Gillo Pontecorvo's black-and-white, newsreel-style film has a sound track by the great Ennio Morricone. No MPAA rating.

Denial Based on Deborah Lipstadt's History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, with the great and greatly busy Rachel Weisz starring as Lipstadt, an American historian sued for libel in the British courts when she labeled Holocaust denier David Irving a, well, Holocaust denier. Timothy Spall stars as the aforementioned. David Hare wrote the screen adaptation; Mick Jackson (L.A. Story, The Bodyguard) directs. PG-13

The Accountant

Ben Affleck stars as a forensic accountant who makes a discovery that puts his life in danger.

Kevin Hart: What Now The comedian performs at the Linc in front of 50,000 people.

Underworld: Blood Wars The fifth installment in the series has Kate Beckinsale return as Selene.

Reviewed by staff critics Steven Rea (S.R.) and Tirdad Derakhshani (T.D.). W.S. denotes a wire-service review.

Hell or High Water Jeff Bridges is a soon-to-retire Texas Ranger teamed with his American Indian partner (Gil Birmingham) as they crisscross West Texas on the trail of two desperate bank-robbing brothers (Ben Foster, Chris Pine). A contemporary western that goes way beyond being simply satisfying genre fare. Written by Taylor Sheridan, directed by David Mackenzie, a soulful, jolting, sharp-eyed affair. 1 hr. 42 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Birth of a Nation

Nate Parker's Sundance sensation lives up to the hype: A powerful work of history and myth alike, it depicts Nat Turner's transformation from a preacher who taught his fellow slaves to submit to white ownership into a firebrand and rebel who led a bloody, if short-lived, mutiny in 1831. Parker, who wrote and directed, gives a rousing, controlled performance as Turner, and he's ably backed up by a terrific ensemble featuring Aunjanue Ellis, Aja Naomi King, and Armie Hammer. 2 hrs.

R

(disturbing, violent content, and some brief nudity) -

T.D.

Command and Control A brilliant, terrifying PBS documentary about the mishaps and accidents that nearly led to the detonation of several nuclear weapons on American soil during the Cold War. Director Robert Kenner's adaptation of reporter Eric Schlosser's book skillfully uses archival material and interviews to provide an in-depth, minute-by-minute analysis of one such "broken- arrow" incident from 1980. 1 hr. 32 No MPAA rating (adult themes, footage of nuclear detonations, disturbing subject matter) - T.D.

Dheepan Jacques Audiard's 2015 Cannes Film Festival winner follows a pretend family - a man, woman, and child, refugees of the Sri Lankan civil war - as they try to make a new life in a grim, graffitied housing complex on the outskirts of Paris. It's tough, sobering stuff, with a heartbreaking performance by Antonythasan Jesuthasan, himself a veteran of the Sri Lankan conflict. 1 hr. 50 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Don't Think Twice A love letter to the art of improv comedy from writer, director, and actor Mike Birbiglia (Sleepwalk with Me). Featuring a superb cast of comics - including Key & Peele's Keegan-Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs (Netflix's Love), Inside Amy Schumer writer Tami Sagher, and Garfunkel and Oates' Kate Micucci - the showbiz satire is about an improv group torn apart when one of the members wins a big TV role. 1 hr. 32 R (profanity and some drug use) - T.D.

Florence Foster Jenkins Meryl Streep is achingly good in director Stephen Frears' latest piece de resistance as Florence Foster Jenkins, a Wilkes Barre-born heiress and amateur vocalist who was dubbed the world's worst singer. Simon Helberg all but steals the show as her pianist, and Hugh Grant is lovely as her husband. Set in the 1940s, when Florence was in her mid-70s, the film follows her preparations to hold her first performance at Carnegie Hall. 1 hr. 50 PG-13 (brief suggestive material) - T.D.

Indignation This adaptation of a Philip Roth coming-of-age novel - a Jewish student from New Jersey accepts a scholarship to a college in small-town Ohio instead of going to war in Korea in 1951 - is beautifully acted, with Logan Lerman as the inexperienced boy and Sarah Gadon as the shiksa goddess. 1 hr. 0 R (sexual content, some language) - W.S.

Kubo and the Two Strings American animator Travis Knight's directorial debut is a gorgeous, memorable 3D animated saga made with a mix of computer animation and stop-motion photography. Set in feudal Japan, it's about a young boy who goes on a quest to avenge his father's death. The great voice cast includes Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, and Matthew McConaughey. 1 hr. 41 PG (thematic elements, scary images, action and peril) - T.D.

Little Men The fast friendship between two New York City 13-year-olds is threatened when their parents start squabbling over a piece of Brooklyn real estate. Ira Sachs' follow-up to Love Is Strange is keenly observed, intimate, and anchored by the performances of newcomers Michael Barbieri and Theo Taplitz. With Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Ehle, and Paulina Garcia. 1 hr. 25 PG (adult themes) - S.R.

Sully Tom Hanks stars as veteran airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger in this deftly executed account of the dramatic emergency landing of a US Airways passenger jet in the middle of the Hudson River - the so-called Miracle on the Hudson. A true-life drama about heroism and people working in harmony under exceptional conditions, and a sobering deconstruction of the flight's aftermath: second-guessing, self-doubt, an administrative body - the National Transportation Safety Board - that appears on the hunt for a scapegoat. Clint Eastwood directs. 1 hr. 35 PG-13 (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Sunset Song Set in rural Scotland in the years leading up to WWI, Terence Davies' adaptation of the beloved Lewis Grassic Gibbon novel is a lyrical masterwork about the tug-of-war between modernity and tradition as it manifests in a budding intellectual still enmeshed in the farmland where she was born. 2 hrs. 15 R (sexuality, nudity violence, profanity) - T.D.

Author: The JT LeRoy Story **1/2

Is this documentary detailing the rise and fall of San Francisco writer Laura Albert, who created the onetime literary phenomenon JT LeRoy, meant to be an apology for the scam, a defense of it, or even an extension of it? That question constantly hovers over Jeff Feuerzeig's movie, which is by turns fascinating and unseemly. 1 hr. 50

R

(language, sexual content, drug use by Courtney Love, violent images)

- W.S.

Blair Witch ** Writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard, arguably the best filmmaking team in horror with a body of work that includes You're Next and The Guest, are wasted in this revisiting of the 1999 low-budget marvel The Blair Witch Project. It's 17 years after doc filmmaker Amanda Donahue and her crew of two disappeared in Black Hills Forest, victims of a witch. When a vid crops up suggesting she's still alive, her brother and a group of friends grab fancy film and tracking equipment and go after her. Will the witch get them, too? 1 hr. 29 R (profanity, terror, and some disturbing images) - T.D.

Bridget Jones's Baby *** The hot-mess Brit returns for the third installment with the same love-triangle high jinks that characterized the first film, this time with added morning sickness. After two unprotected hookups, Jones (Renee Zellwegger) finds out she's pregnant, but doesn't know who the father is: a tech billionaire (Patrick Dempsey) or longtime love (and now ex) Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). The film is not as good as the first go-round, but much better than the dreadful second. 2 hr. 2 R (language, sex, nudity) - M.E.

Deepwater Horizon *** One of the most effective action directors in the biz, Peter Berg recounts with rare grace and style the April 20, 2010, explosion that engulfed the massive Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Featuring Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Kate Hudson, and Gina Rodriguez, this is a film of great economy and elegance, a no-nonsense re-creation of a tragedy that's thrilling, suspenseful, heart-stopping. Yet one can't help but wonder whether the story would not have been better served with a more thoughtful drama that captured its long-term consequences. 1 hr. 47 PG-13 (prolonged intense disaster sequences and related disturbing images, and some profanity) - T.D.

Demon *** An eerie horror pic and a sharply funny satire at the same time, the last film by Polish director Marcin Wrona is a superb surrealist fable about the legacy of the Holocaust in Poland, which lost virtually its entire Jewish population. Israeli actor Itay Tiran plays a young groom invaded by the spirit of a dead woman on his wedding day. 1 hr. 34 R (Profanity, sexuality, some nudity) - T.D.

Don't Breathe *** Horror director Fede Alvarez follows up his fresh take on Sam Rami's Evil Dead with a lean, mean, twisted home-invasion thriller about three young thieves who break into the house of an aging blind man (Stephen Lang), who turns out to be vengeful, violent, and bloodthirsty. One of the most suspenseful and frightening horror pics of the year, this ingenious thriller is filled with delightful twists. 1 hr. 28 R (terror, violence, disturbing content, and profanity, including sexual references) - T.D.

The Dressmaker *1/2 Kate Winslet plays a seamstress who returns to her hometown seeking revenge for wrongs done to her as a child. But there's no coherence to this story, and no reason for the repellent vignette of a marital rape, played for laughs. 1 hr. 59 R (brief language and a scene of violence) - W.S.

Girl Asleep *** Australian coming-of-age comedy has shy kids, mean girls, a groovy '70s vibe, a monster, an ice queen, and a she-warrior who packs a mean punch. Think of it as Michel Gondry meets Wes Anderson, although it avoids quirk for the sake of quirk. 1 hr. 17 No MPAA rating (brief strong language) - W.S.

The Girl on the Train **1/2 Emily Blunt will set your teeth on edge as a self-hating alcoholic divorcée in this surprisingly enjoyable murder mystery with a quasi-feminist twist. Told entirely from the point of view of its three heroines (including Rebecca Ferguson and Haley Bennett), the thriller aspires to Vertigo-like perfection. But it's no Hitchcock classic. Costars Justin Theroux and Luke Evans provide a virile male element. 1 hr. 52 R (violence, sexual content, profanity and nudity) - T.D.

The Hollars ** Actor-director John Krasinski (The Office, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men) delivers an uneven, exasperating mess of a story with his sophomore directorial effort, an endlessly life-affirming dramedy about the love that helps a middle-class Ohio family rise above their many dysfunctions. Stuffed with plot twist after plot twist and enough themes to fill a library, the film founders despite a fine cast that includes Margo Martindale, Richard Jenkins, Sharlto Copley, and Anna Kendrick. 1 hr. 28 PG-13 (brief profanity and some thematic elements) - T.D.

The Light Between Oceans ** Set in a staggeringly beautiful Down Under at the end of the First World War, a tragic romance by way of Derek Cianfrance, adapted from the M.L. Stedman bestseller. Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander are the star-crossed pair in this epic weepie about fate and forgiveness, guilt and rage, and the timeless allure of handknit woolens. 2 hrs. 12 PG-13 (adult themes) - S.R.

The Lovers and the Despot (Not previewed) Documentary tells the bizarre true tale of a South Korean actress and her director ex-husband who were kidnapped by North Korea's Kim Jong-il to bring glory to his country's film industry. 1 hr. 38 No MPAA rating (violence discussed).

The Magnificent Seven ** Good turns by Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, and Vincent D'Onofrio can't save Training Day director Antoine Fuqua's star-studded remake of John Sturges' 1960 masterpiece. It's fun, exciting, and diverting enough. It's also entirely forgettable. 2 hrs. 12 PG-13 (extended and intense sequences of western violence, and historical smoking, some profanity, and suggestive material) - T.D.

A Man Called Ove *** Rolf Lassgård (Wallander) is brilliant in this heartwarming dramedy as a suicidal 59-year-old factory worker who finds life unbearable after his wife's death. A pitiless misanthrope who gets a kick out of showing up his neighbors as idiots, he finds his way back to humanity and love when he befriends a young family next door. Flashbacks feature the stunning Ida Engvoll as the young Ove's wife. With Bahar Pars, Tobias Almborg. In Swedish with English subtitles. 1 hr. 56 PG-13 (thematic content, some disturbing images, and profanity) - T.D.

Masterminds **1/2 Zach Galifianakis is wonderfully odd as a bumbling thief in the latest slapstick comedy from Napoleon Dynamite writer-director Jared Hess. Based on a real-life 1997 armored-car-company heist, the admittedly uneven film is filled with goofy turns by a terrific comic cast, including Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson, Jason Sudekis, and Kate McKinnon. 1 hr. 34 PG-13 (crude and sexual humor, some profanity and violence) - T.D.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (Not previewed) Teen comedy from Steve Carr (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) stars Griffin Gluck as a heretofore good kid who is sick of following the rules all the time. So he summons a schoolwide rebellion to break every school rule in the book. 1 hr. 32 PG (rude humor throughout, profanity, thematic elements)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children **1/2 Tim Burton's tween adventure fantasy tries to replicate the immensely successful mix of art-house cool and blockbuster power that made Alice in Wonderland such a huge hit. The effort backfires. Eva Green stars as the headmistress of a mysterious school for paranormally gifted kids who are hunted down by murderous monsters. Asa Butterfield is the misfit Florida teen who finds himself at the school, and Ella Purnell of Never Let Me Go is the remarkably charming girl he falls for. Samuel L. Jackson, Terence Stamp, and Judi Dench costar. 2 hrs. 07 PG-13 (intense sequences of fantasy action/violence and peril) - T.D.

Our Kind of Traitor **1/2 Ewan McGregor is likable as a Hitchcockian Everyman in this adaptation of the man who is sucked into a dangerous spy game when a Russian mobster (a hulking, over-the-top Stellan Skarsgård) hands him evidence against his bosses to pass on to British intelligence, and Damian Lewis strains credulity as their case officer. One of the few John le Carré adaptations that doesn't quite hold together. 1 hr. 47 R (violence, profanity throughout, some sexuality, nudity, brief drug use) - T.D.

Snowden *** Oliver Stone's best political film, this fascinating, exciting biopic about NSA contractor-turned-whistle- blower Edward Snowden is a sober, serious affair that isn't hampered by the histrionics that hobbles earlier Stone efforts such as Platoon and JFK. While it features an large, amazing ensemble cast, including Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary Quinto, and Shailene Woodley, the film belongs to star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is mesmerizing as Snowden. 2 hrs. 14 R (profanity, sexuality, nudity) - T.D.

Storks ** The latest 3D, CGI, animated family adventure saga tries to combine the cuteness factor of newborn babies with the edgy humor of a Saturday Night Live skit. Featuring voices by Adam Samberg, Jennifer Aniston, Kelsey Grammer, Keegan-Michael Key, and Jordan Peele, it's about a rebellious stork that accidentally ruins the latest business venture of the world's storks - tired of delivering babies, they now make home deliveries for an online retailer. 1 hr. 29 PG ( mild action and some thematic elements) - T.D.

Suicide Squad **1/2 Superman is dead. To protect America, a Defense Department guru (Viola Davis) forces a group of condemned metahuman killers to join a special-forces team. Jared Leto and Margot Robbie steal the show as the Joker and his lover. A schizoid tale that's absurdly dark one minute, ridiculously funny the next, the movie also features Will Smith, Common, and Joel Kinnaman. 2 hrs. 03 PG-13 (sequences of violence and action throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content, and profanity) - T.D.

White Girl *** Before her freshman year in college, Leah (Morgan Saylor) moves to Queens and falls for a cocaine dealer. After her boyfriend's arrest, she goes to ever greater lengths to get him out of jail. Leah isn't a compelling heroine, but Saylor's performance is compelling, and the young lovers' desperate attempt to bridge the gap between their worlds makes the film deeply moving. 1 hr. 28 R (strong language, graphic sex, rape, drug use, violence) - W.S.