Category: Movie Reviews

Directed by Andres Beltran and written by Matt Pitts, “Quicksand” is the story of a couple on the brink of divorce who travel to South America. Healthcare professionals who work and live in the United States, the wife (played by Colombian actress Carolina Gaitán) is a doctor returning to her home country after many years away to deliver a lecture at a conference. The husband (played by Canadian actor Allan Hawco) is in Bogotá for the first time. 

But before we see the couple, we are treated to a prologue of hunters in the rainforest that is meant to assure us this is a thriller and not a somber chamber piece, but it also spells out the problems with the film. The opening scene with the hunters relies on fast cutting to create a sense of terror that really just feels disorienting. The score also tells us how to feel and doesn’t relent for the film’s 85-minute runtime. The hunter’s wailing fear fails to make an impact because we don’t know what he’s afraid of. 

From there, we meet the couple who are the story’s focus. They have left their young children back in the States and we slowly realize their marriage has collapsed. The idea of a failing couple in peril far from home is an intriguing idea—it makes one imagine a hybrid of Ingmar Bergman and “Deliverance.” But the script fails to give the actors what they need to make this couple credible. Their first scenes are lacking in the kind of icy dread that is generated by a husband and wife in crisis and trying to pull away. The reasons for their marital trouble don’t need to be spelled out in a monologue, but they need to feel concrete. And they don’t.

The couple decides to take a hike in the rainforest near Bogotá, where they immediately encounter a thief who has trailed them to the remote location. After a brief confrontation, the wife and husband find themselves in the titular liquefied soil where they remain for the remaining two-thirds of the film. We are told by the husband that unlike ’70s television, actual quicksand doesn’t pull you under unless you flail, so they are merely stuck in the wilderness, waiting to fend off human and animal predators alike. 

The idea of a pair in crisis being forced into mutual Samuel Beckett-like stasis with one another feels like a form of therapy that should have been invented by now. And, of course, the quicksand does begin to force the couple to look past their grievances and see the value in one another. The film plays with the idea that their reconciliation may be for naught with their lives in peril and tries to keep us in suspense until the credits roll. In other hands and with greater faith in the audience, this film could have gone for a satisfying cinematic slow burn rather than resort to stylistic overkill. Coupled with a more layered and less cliched screenplay, “Quicksand” might have achieved something more gripping and emotionally moving. 

But despite the actors’ best efforts, the film gets bogged down by trite writing and over-direction. Real quicksand may not drag its victims down, but “Quicksand” sinks beneath the weight of its missed opportunities. 

On Shudder now.

No theme is more frequent in movies than very different people taking a journey together. They’re initially antagonistic, but they find a growing appreciation for one another throughout the story. Usually, one is careful and reserved, while the other is an impulsive and free spirit. The reason for the enduring appeal of these stories is the eternal human struggle between the ego and the superego. There’s something funny but also satisfying about seeing reconciliation, even the integration of the two. The set-up immediately connects to us; all we need is some worthy details, vivid supporting characters, and, if possible, some nice scenery.   

And that is what we get in the watchable French film “Two Tickets to Greece,” the story of two middle-aged women who have not seen each other since their early teens and find themselves traveling together to the Greek Isles. As a character points out to Blandine (Olivia Côte), even her name sounds boring. Blandine’s husband left her two years earlier and is about to have a baby with his new, young wife. Magalie (Laure Calamy) lives for fun, excitement, and the triumph of petty cons like keeping the tags on an expensive shirt so she can wear it once and then return it. In a brief flashback as the movie begins, we see them as middle schoolers getting into trouble and laughing about it. 

When Blandine and her college student son are going through boxes of things that have been packed away for decades, she tells him about her old friend, and he surprises her by tracking down Magalie and inviting her to meet Blandine for dinner. She does not tell him it did not go well, so he surprises her again by inviting Magalie to accompany Blandine on the trip to Greece. When she tells him they cannot get along, he loses patience. “You have two weeks to kill each other or patch things up. I don’t care which.”

Blandine has planned a stay in a luxurious hotel on the island of Amorgos, where she and Magalie once dreamed of visiting together, inspired by a film they had never watched, Luc Besson’s “The Big Blue.” But Magalie is a chaos agent. The careful, precise itinerary Blandine had in mind, with a notebook and glue stick to document every step, is jettisoned. Others might make Magalie’s choices because they cannot imagine the consequences. But Magalie is so determined to enjoy every possible outcome that she welcomes the consequences. So what if they get kicked off the ferry boat on a different island than the one with the fancy hotel? No problem! “We’ll sleep under the stars!” 

They end up at a small, rustic inn. Happy wherever she is, Magalie dances joyfully on the patio (and on a tabletop), where the other guests are having dinner. In a very sweet moment, as Blandine watches, she sees Magalie not as she is now but as she was when they were friends, imagining herself dancing with her as they did in middle school.

What elevates this film above the usual trip-gone-wrong storyline is its gentle exploration of what links the two women beyond their history. This is a movie about processing grief: Blandine over the loss of her husband and the life she thought she would have; Magalie over early trauma briefly touched on as the women finally talk about what drove them apart. There is an element of frantic denial in Magalie’s ebullience and prolonged self-pity in Blandine’s unwillingness to move forward. This comes together with the introduction of a third character, who goes by the chosen name Bijou (jewel), played by the British actress Kristin Scott-Thomas (“Four Weddings and a Funeral”). 

Bijou is Margalie’s friend. When the travelers find themselves stuck on yet another island that is not Amorgos, Bijou welcomes them into the beautiful home she shares with a Greek artist named Dimitris (Panos Koronis). She shares Margalie’s view that every minute of life should be fun, but in a quieter moment, Blandine learns that there is loss and worry underneath Bijou’s embrace of pleasure. And there is compassion as well. Scott-Thomas does wonders with this role, creating a full, complex character and adding depth to the storyline. It is as much due to what she sees in Bijou as in the accumulated frustrations of the trip that lead Blandine (significantly re-named by Bijou) to begin to be honest about her feelings toward Margalie. Three times in the film, we see how uncomfortable Blandine is with nudity, her own and anyone else’s. But she learns that refusing to look left her missing important information and an opportunity for intimacy, not romantic or sexual, just a shared understanding with another person. Margalie learns there is value in slowing down to pay attention to someone else. In these gorgeous settings, away from home, they show us that a journey filled with unexpected detours can end up in a destination better than the one we plan.

Now playing in theaters. 

The importance of Black athletes in the history and culture of American sports is relatively plain. However, the sports that come to mind are likely ones with either predominantly Black rosters like football and basketball, or ones with pinpointed moments of historical bookmarks like Jackie Robinson’s entrance into baseball. From director Hubert Davis, “Black Ice” is an icebreaking expose on the influence and oppression of Black athletes in Canada’s most treasured sport, hockey.

“Black Ice” is a historical document within the sphere of sports and outside of it, with anthropological context added. The migration of Black people to Canada from the southern United States constructed a flimsy pillar of national identity that believes Canada to be an escape from America’s racism, and this is partially to blame for how anti-Black racism within the nation was swept under the rug. 

Through multi-generational testimony from Black hockey players, we learn about the racism endured by athletes from teammates, coaches, leagues, and fans alike who believe they don’t belong in the sport. There’s no timidity in the doc’s testimonies. The film affords its subjects the same blunt expression that has been weaponized against them, and the result is unfiltered emotional depth that translates poignantly.

“Black Ice” understands at its core the fatigue of Black people used for their talents and skill, paraded as athletic representation of the cities they play for, who are constantly abused privately and publicly. From covert comments like “uncoachability” to equipment managers dressing in Blackface and coaches berating Black players for warming up to rap music, there’s no limit to the casual implementation of violence and absolutely zero room for interpretation. 

“Black Ice” is about Black hockey players, but also contains damning examinations of the ways that sports culture is a microcosm of general culture. Hockey is a Canadian pride and joy, and with that being said, the abuse allowed within it is itself a statement of priority. One of the most horrifically ironic moments in the movie details a white man who threw a banana at a Black player, only to come out and say he wants to move past it and continue forward with his career aspirations in policing. 

One of the film’s strongest tenets is its multi-generational and gender inclusive lens. On the younger end of the spectrum, we hear stories about the monetary costs playing hockey—from gear to lessons to team expenses—that create a level of financial inaccessibility in the predominantly white sport. Yet we also hear cherished memories from the sport’s older athletes and pioneers, who would pour out buckets of water on a cold day to create their own rink. “Black Ice” examines the evolution from outright exclusion to predatory inclusion that took place in the sport. 

Even with all of its jarring plight, what triumphs over the film’s tone is the love the athletes have for the sport. It is not necessary to be a hockey fan to absorb “Black Ice.” The players’ resilience, passion, and grit are the true subjects, and our admiration for the players motivates the film even as racism demands spotlight. It’s a symbiotic relationship, however unfortunate, that paints a true portrait of the culture of hockey, the importance of Black athletes within it, and the greater significance of what our cherished entertainments reveal about us.  

Now playing in theaters. 

There’s something a little old-fashioned about “The Miracle Club.” Set in 1967 Ireland, “The Miracle Club” stars three powerhouse Oscar-winning and/or nominated actresses (none of whom are Irish) and features period clothing and cars, sweeping cinematography, location-shooting, and a heartwarming message, where each character gets a satisfying arc. Cliches work for a reason. Emmy-nominated director Thaddeus O’Sullivan is alert to details and nuance, which is very important with a script (by Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager, and Joshua D. Maurer, based on a story by Smallhorne) where the revelations can be seen coming from three fields away. “The Miracle Club” has been kicking around as a potential project for years, and now, with Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, and Laura Linney starring, it’s finally come to pass.

Lily (Smith) and Eileen (Bates) are lifelong friends living in a working-class suburb of Dublin, made up really of just a couple of blocks. It is a close community where everyone knows everyone else, gossip reigns, and grudges go on for generations. Lily, Eileen, and their much younger friend Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) sign up for a talent contest at the local parish. The prize? Tickets to Lourdes, the pilgrimage site in France, a place the women, all faithful and devout (grudges notwithstanding), have all been longing to visit. Each woman needs a miracle. Eileen found a lump in her breast and told nobody. She hasn’t gone to a doctor either. Her husband (Stephen Rea) and a gaggle of children keep her busy, and Eileen is resigned to leaving them. Lily can’t get over the death of her son Declan, who drowned many years before. Dolly’s young son (Eric Smith) cannot (or won’t?) speak, and Dolly hopes for a cure.

The rhythm of this small neighborhood is established immediately, and the tone is warm, inviting, and comfortable. John Conroy’s cinematography starts with stunning sweeps of Irish green and the blue sea, the gorgeous cliffs and rocks, Ireland incarnate. But he shows equal care with the small block of houses and their colored doors, the intimacy of the setting. John Hand’s production design is also a major contribution: the homes feel lived in, realistic, and not presented condescendingly. It’s homey and real.

Naturally, Lily and Eileen have secrets, all of which come roaring to the surface when Chrissie (Linney) returns to town, just in time to catch the talent show. She’s been gone from the town for decades, and clearly, there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge. Eileen can barely look at her; Lily turns her nose at her. Dolly has no idea what’s going on and warms to Chrissie immediately. Before you know it, through twists, turns, and coincidences, the quartet is off to Lourdes, praying for personal, physical, and spiritual miracles.

It’s easy to predict how this will go, but with actresses like Bates (whose accent is a bit spotty) and Smith (whose accent is very good), there’s always a lot to dig into and appreciate. Linney’s character is the opposite of expressive and remains so for much of the film, but there are cracks in the armor as the women’s time in Lourdes continues. Smith, in particular, gives a heart-breaking performance, guilt, and shame basically pouring out of her eyes, even as she struggles to cover it up with an imperious manner. She plays both simultaneously. It’s tempting to say Smith is “unsurprisingly” great, but this should be resisted. Maggie Smith is always surprising; we should not take her for granted!

There are moving moments (O’Casey is very touching), but once the “miracles” start coming, the film tilts into very shallow waters. It’s best at its most casual: the interplay of emotions and resentments, the silliness of holding grudges, the pain beneath the surface of these women. We are also treated to supposedly humorous scenes of the menfolk back home falling apart without their women: they have to shop for groceries now, they have to change diapers, oh, how clumsy they are! Considering that this is a period film, which takes place in a world untouched (so far) by the upheavals of the 1960s, these scenes are still pretty rote.

It’s worth it, though, to wait for Smith’s performance of the line: “God punished me for taking him away like that.” The line comes from her guts, her soul, and the shallow waters immediately yield to deep.

Now playing in theaters. 

Early into “Bird Box Barcelona,” a set-up foretells the shallow test of fate the film will attempt. The workmanlike, passable Spanish-set sequel to the apocalyptic horror sci-fi flick “Bird Box” opens as Sebastián (Mario Casas) and his daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard) are celebrating her birthday by roller skating. Afterward, they’re jumped for their food by a blind trio of goons. Later, they encounter a group of scavengers who plead for help. Sebastián tells them he’s a former engineer and knows where there’s a generator. He just needs shelter for the night. 

The group takes him in and mends his wounds. While sleeping in the comforts of a depot, someone hijacks the bus they’re slumbering in, exposing everyone to the open. If you’ve seen the first “Bird Box,” you know the deal: There are creatures that seem to live in the air, and when you look at them, they whisper your deepest desires to you so that you might die by suicide. The narrative now asks, “Is Sebastián the shepherd or the wolf?” While co-directors David Pastor and Àlex Pastor are intrigued by injecting religiosity into an apocalyptic narrative, their instincts lack flair or a point. This version feels like it’s trying to reengineer the prior film’s success without any of the originality. 

“Bird Box Barcelona” takes inspiration from a tiny nugget from the first movie by Susanne Bier. Some people can look upon the creatures without later turning to self-harm. Instead, they’ve formed a kind of cult around the creatures. Seven months ago, Sebastián had a run-in with Barcelona’s version of that clan. It takes time before we learn exactly what happened. But in the meantime, we figure out the mythology that drives Sebastián: He believes these creatures are seraphs. Not only that, he gets a kick out of seeing the celestial orb that seems to float up to the heavens from the people who die. 

Like many films, “Bird Box Barcelona” advertises itself as a narrative about grief, covering the subject in the blandest ways. Before long, Sebastián discovers another group, this time led by the British-Spaniard Claire (Georgina Campbell). She happens to be dressed in the same color scheme as Sandra Bullock in the first film, an all-too-on-the-nose attempt to recreate that magic. The primary figures among Claire’s companions are Octavia (an underused Diego Calva), a lost German girl looking for her mother, Sofia (Naila Schuberth), and an elderly couple, Isabel (Lola Dueñas) and Roberto (Gonzalo de Castro). Nearly all of them have lost somebody, which makes them vulnerable when the creatures whisper in their ear with the voice of long-gone loved ones. 

The script by the Pastors (with Josh Malerman’s novel still an inspiration) skims the surface of grief. Their film says that the trauma wrought by grief might push you to lose your senses, decimate your logic, and maybe even make you go on a religious crusade. But that sense isn’t deeply felt in any of the characters. Instead, we’re given their base-level tragedy and not much else. Outside of Sebastián, are any of them religious? Do they blame God for what happened? The film is in such a rush to create a quick binary between Sebastián’s mission and this group of people that it doesn’t bother to get us to care about them. 

It doesn’t help that much of the mystery and intrigue that accompanied the concept from the previous “Bird Box” evaporates here. Rather the primary goal is for these survivors to trace their way through Barcelona to a set of gondolas that’ll take them to Montjuic Castle, where there are rumors that survivors are hiding out. Sofia’s mom might even be among them. 

Along the way, Sebastián must, of course, grapple with his faith. But that internal conflict lacks dramatic tension. The same can be said about the horror aspect. “Bird Box Barcelona” is cut with assured hands by editors Luis de la Madrid and Martí Roca and shot with a watchful eye by cinematographer Daniel Aranyó, but there’s a general dearth of shocks. That bite is even absent from the film’s final race to the gondolas, where Sebastián and the survivors must square off with the head of this doomsday cult. Its leader, a bearded man with a third eye branded on his hand, is so barely sketched he might as well be a figment of Sebastián’s mind.      

There’s nothing inherently bad in the Pastors’ film. It’s competently made with the general sheen you expect from a bigger budget. You are, however, left scratching your head about what another sequel could bring that this one clearly couldn’t. No one in this cast is as dynamic as Bullock, nor is anything as tightly conceived as in the prior film. If seeing is believing, “Bird Box Barcelona” doesn’t have much to show.

On Netflix tomorrow, July 14th.

Two years ago, writer Ed Solomon and director Steven Soderbergh collaborated on one of the best noirs in years with “No Sudden Move.” The pair are back with another twisty tale of buried secrets and double-crosses with Max’s “Full Circle,” a six-part limited series with a phenomenal cast and expectedly ace direction. There are a few too many coincidental twists in this tale for it to be as taut as the best of the genre, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that a feature runtime would have forced a paring of the script that would have fixed this problem. But there’s so much to like here that its sins can be forgiven. 

“Full Circle” opens as what seems like a relatively straightforward kidnapping drama, almost as if it will be Soderbergh’s take on something like Ron Howard’s “Ransom.” The son of a wealthy family is kidnapped. Except, well, not really. Things go very wrong from the beginning of this complex scheme, orchestrated by Guyanese power player Mahabir (CCH Pounder), who speaks of closing a circle to remove a curse. You see, the powerful New York family has ties to an incident in Guyana many years ago, and so the kidnapping is more than just a typical money grab—it’s an act of vengeance. Much of the most interesting material in Solomon’s script works from the idea that people often act out of more than one self-interest.

At first, Derek (Timothy Olyphant) and Sam (Claire Danes) presume that the abduction of their son Jared (Ethan Stoddard) is purely for financial gain. After all, Jared’s grandfather is a celebrity named Chef Jeff (Dennis Quaid). The abductors, which include Mahabir’s nephew Aked (Jharrel Jerome), his ex-girlfriend Natalia (Adia), and teens named Xavier (Sheyi Cole) and Louis (Gerald Jones), demand an odd sum: $314,159, which Jeff notes is the start of the numerical value of pi. It’s an easy amount of money for this incredibly well-off family to get, and Derek is soon racing around town with a bag of cash. However, something’s gone wrong from the very beginning that I won’t spoil. I’ll only say that decisions must be made quickly, and not everyone here seems capable of making the right ones.

Dragged into this drama is an officer of the United States Postal Inspection Service named Harmony (Zazie Beetz), who is investigating a series of insurance scams perpetrated by Mahabir and her crew. When she’s not butting heads with a slimy superior Manny, played perfectly by Jim Gaffigan, or breaking up with her girlfriend, the spectacularly named Melody Harmony is playing Columbo, drawing the lines that connect Mahabir, Aked, Sam & Derek, and even her boss. It’s a tale of remarkable connections between characters that sometimes stretches credulity, but the robustness of Soderbergh’s filmmaking holds it together. Whether it’s sweaty close-ups or liberal use of a very Bernard Herrman-esque score by Zack Ryan, “Full Circle” is a great example of how much craftsmanship one of the best American filmmakers brings to everything he does.

Soderbergh is also a consistently underrated director of performance, and there are several stand-outs here. There could almost be a feminist read of this tale given how not only are Manny, Jeff, and Derek’s skeletons about to come tumbling out of their closets, but they seem radially incapable of holding their own lives together as the tensions rise. Olyphant, Gaffigan, and Quaid are all excellent at capturing this privileged naivete without turning their characters into caricatures. Danes can do “harried professional” in her sleep, partially because she’s so good at it. As she realizes the connections that give “Full Circle” its shape, Danes deftly sells some late-series moral conundrums necessary for the show’s endgame. Beetz nails the playful tone of a woman who knows she’s smarter than the professional situation she has found herself in—working for a jerk—and it’s her ability to sell Harmony’s quick decisions that gives the piece much momentum. Finally, Jerome is perhaps the best of the series, giving Aked a desperation that feels truly dangerous.

The final episode is a bit of a letdown in that the series has built so much tension to that point, only for it to stall when it still has to close a few loops. Having said that, the final image is one of Soderbergh’s best closing shots, a reminder that this has all been about long-term consequences and that things have a habit of finding their way back to where they began.

Whole series was screened for review. “Full Circle” premieres on Max tomorrow, July 13^th.

“Sound of Freedom,” the movie of the moment, has a message first, and a story second. Its message is to get us to care more about the horrors of child sex trafficking. It does that by showing queasy sequences of kids in danger, being carted around by slimy adults, and making us remember everyone’s faces. Then it gives us a weary hero, Tim Ballard, an American man whose superpower is that he cares. This father and husband cares so much that he leaves his job at Homeland Security ten months before earning a pension. Instead of only catching pedophiles, as he has done nearly 300 times before, he goes to Colombia and undercover to help rescue children. This man is played by a gentle and gravely serious Jim Caviezel, who shoulders this message’s suffering just like when he played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” 

The story is true, but it barely comes to life with such a telling. Which is a shame, not just because it’s uncomfortable to be numbed by these themes, but also because director Alejandro Monteverde well-clears the low bar for filmmaking one expects from movies that are message-first (and often come with similar faith-driven backers). Take away the noise surrounding it, and “Sound of Freedom” has distinct cinematic ambitions: a non-graphic horror film with what could be called an art-house sensibility for muted rage and precise, striking shadows derived from an already bleak world. If “Sound of Freedom” were less concerned with being something “important,” it could be more than a mood, it could be a movie. 

All on its own, “Sound of Freedom” is a solemn, drawn-out bore with a not particularly bold narrative stance—caring about the safety of children is roughly the easiest cause for any remotely decent human being. Previous films like “Gone Baby Gone” and “Taken” have also banked on that tension, showing how easy it is to be invested in a story when children are stolen and put into uncertain danger. But while being so committed to such solemnity and suffering, the truncated storytelling by co-writers Monteverde and Rod Barr neglects to flesh out its ideas or characters or add any more intensity to Ballard’s slow-slow-slow burn search for two kids in particular (Lucás Ávila’s Miguel and Cristal Aparicio’s Rocío) whose faces haunt him. The “true story” framing only gives it so much edge before that, too, is dulled. 

This world is so fraught with worry about the children that it seems to avoid creating tension elsewhere, and so it places Ballard in dull scenes opposite gullible one-dimensional creeps; his undercover missions, which sometimes have him speaking like the pedophiles he is pursuing, are more about the audience’s discomfort than his danger. There are hardly any mind games to be played, just the settings of sting operations made from a broad idea of how this would happen in real life. It’s one anti-climactic moment after another, and while it’s intriguing how Monteverde leans away from violence or machismo, it puts little else in its place. (For anyone gearing up to see “Sound of Freedom” because the poster has Caviezel holding a gun and a glare, this isn’t that kind of movie.)

Handsomely stark scenes are often reduced to three or four lines of dialogue, including the eureka moment of how Ballard gets involved in the process. A work buddy asks him how many children he’s saved, so Ballard changes his line of work. Mira Sorvino, as Ballard’s wife Katherine, plays a character who is credited at the end as inspiring his whole journey, but we only hear from her a couple of cliche sentences at a time. We at least get to hear more from Bill Camp, playing a confidant for Ballard. Camp has a gutting monologue about being at the heart of darkness of child sexual abuse. He’s also there to say the movie’s title and sets up Ballard to say its catchphrase, which you can now buy as a bumper sticker: “God’s children are not for sale.” 

With his blonde hair cutting through the movie’s gray and black palette, Caviezel is a crucial anchor for this hollow character study to be taken as seriously as possible. It’s an intriguing, restrained performance but loses its appeal parallel to how the movie doesn’t develop Ballard beyond being a symbol. A casual YouTube search on the real Ballard shows that he’s a far more outspoken, hyper type than we see here. It suggests a different tone for such a character-focused story, and one wonders why the makers were weary of it. 

“Sound of Freedom” takes place in, and posits to be, a tough conversation piece about the world of child sex trafficking, but it’s hardly any more informational than a horror movie about bogeymen. A few factoids about the pervasiveness of modern slavery are shared in text at the end, and there’s a note about how Ballard’s dedication helped pass legislation that made international cooperation on such stings more possible, but these notes are overshadowed by “Sound of Freedom” yet again being misguided and making the cause about itself. As the end credits play, Jim Caviezel re-appears to say how the makers of “Sound of Freedom” believe this movie could be the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin for 21st-century slavery.” He says that the children shown in the movie are the real heroes but spends most of the time trying to empower you, the people, to spread the word, scan the QR code, and buy more tickets so other people can see this movie and put an end to this horror. But there’s little transparency here about how seeing Monteverde’s film can help stop child sex trafficking, as this movie suggests. The suspiciousness of “Sound of Freedom” is queasy itself. 

Now playing in theaters. 

The 2010 Ugandan film “Who Killed Captain Alex?” is unlike any action movie that came before it. Over a non-stop entertaining 70 minutes, the violent but knowingly cartoonish single-camera film unleashes an onslaught of explosions, gunfire, and exploding heads, treating war as extreme, gleeful slapstick. A voice shares space on a soundtrack that sometimes borrows a flute-synth cover of Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose,” his exclamatory commentary emphasizing how serious you should not take its Rambo-inspired carnage: “Everybody in Uganda knows kung fu! The movie’s on!” “Who Killed Captain Alex?” is pure cinema. Like whatever young Sammy Fabelman of “The Fabelmans” would go on to make, it’s the work of a dreamer with a movie camera. 

Cathryne Czubek’s charming and entertaining documentary “Once Upon a Time in Uganda” bottles the magic that goes into such a production, which includes years of hard work, the support of believers, and a need to make one’s imagination reality. “Who Killed Captain Alex?” is one of many high-octane and low-budget action features from writer/director Nabwana I.G.G., known here as Isaac, the founder of Ramon Productions in the Wakaliga slum in Uganda. He also calls his enterprise Wakaliwood, and there among people’s homes and mud roads, you can find him and his crew of stunt people, props makers, stars, and filmmakers using condoms for blood bursts or tying a green screen to the side of a one-story building so that someone can imitate hanging from a helicopter. His monthly-made features are then distributed around town, though DVD players are not common. It is not a high-profit business model, but that isn’t why Isaac is doing this. 

The creation of Isaac’s homemade blockbusters is (sometimes uneasily) framed as a life-changing journey for his most dedicated follower, a white New York film impresario named Alan Hofmanis, who becomes our surrogate into this world where Czubek and her crew have an invisible presence. Hofmans saw a type of cinematic revolution when he got his first glimpse of Wakaliwood (the viral trailer for “Who Killed Captain Alex?”), and he spent years living in Uganda trying to help Isaac with his knowledge of film festivals and publicity. They began a friendship and partnership that had Alan working on, sometimes starring in (as the one white person always beaten up) and helping produce and distribute Isaac’s movies. 

Isaac’s prolific cinema is the kind of DIY goodness that Michel Gondry (“Be Kind Rewind”) has long been manifesting, and Czubek has a playfulness similar to the French filmmaker while illustrating the history of Wakaliwood, including how it presents the past. I loved a moment where Isaac reflected on how while he was a brick-maker, he was always been thinking about movie-making—behind him, characters appear as if walking out from his dream. He then “directs” them away, one of a few moments in which Isaac, Alan, and Czubek treat this documentary as means for more Wakaliwood rule-breaking. 

Taking place over many years, “Once Upon a Time in Uganda” focuses on both Alan’s and Isaac’s experiences, although the former can sometimes have less impact, even with all of his advocacy. Czubek’s take struggles with the main problem in its tale, a critical moment when the friendship breaks down after Isaac agrees to make a TV series out of “Who Killed Captain Alex?” with a Ugandan media mogul. Alan sees it as a type of betrayal. Though they live near each other, they don’t talk for weeks. Part of it seems to be a miscommunication, which is hard to make a good drama out of, and also out of Alan’s steadfastness to keep Wakaliwood within his definition of pure. Money can ruin good ideas, as Hollywood knows, which makes Wakaliwood even more of a potent microcosm for Czubek’s ode to movie-making. But this problem does make for a good scene in which the two friends and collaborators eventually talk and can’t meet eye-to-eye, a more bracing and stark moment compared to the usual fictional chaos in Isaac’s films. 

It’s also rewarding and helpful when this doc addresses some of the “criticisms” that Isaac’s cinema could face, especially for those who see “Who Killed Captain Alex?” out of the loving context this movie provides. “Once Upon a Time in Uganda” voices Isaac’s perspective—“They are action in a comedy way”—while Alan compares them to Road Runner cartoons, scoffing at anyone thinking Isaac should be doing something more dramatic to be taken seriously. In a reflective, tactfully incorporated moment, Isaac talks about the real horrors he saw in Uganda in the ‘80s after the fall of Idi Amin and then directs a kid to play his younger self running away from violence. But he also tells us he doesn’t want to make movies about such real horror, at least yet. “This is a different narrative about Africa,” he says. 

As it champions the importance of Wakaliwood with equal admiration and clarity, “Once Upon a Time in Uganda” maintains a personal POV that offers more than an outsider’s awe, even though Alan’s wanderlust arc just doesn’t compare to what Isaac has done and is doing. But while certain passages of the doc can be less emotionally involving than others, its surf-guitar-fueled montages of Isaac making another audacious movie are always invigorating. “Once Upon a Time in Uganda” is the advocacy that Isaac’s auteurship and ideology need most—this doc helps one re-appreciate movie-making as a compulsive, creative odyssey, a shot-by-shot pursuit of elusive inner peace. 

Now playing in theaters. 

“The Out-Laws,” about a blithering schmuck (Adam DeVine) who gets tangled up with his fiancee’s secret-bank-robber parents (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin), would be skippable even if it didn’t have the rotten timing to debut a week after the death of the great Alan Arkin, one of the stars of the “The In-Laws,” a movie that this new film incompetently tries to channel. Nearly every aspect of this feature from Tyler Spindel, formerly a second unit director for Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, is derivative and desperate and, at the same time, bizarrely pleased with itself. 

Devine’s character, Owen Browning, is a bank manager, despite being so cloddish and lacking in judgment or impulse control that it’s hard to imagine him being trusted to take a bag of garbage to the curb. His fiancee Parker (Nina Dobrev), is a yoga instructor everyone in Owen’s family inexplicably thinks is a stripper. She’s pleasant and conventionally attractive, but just quirky enough not to come across as bland or dull. She seems stable and mature. We never understand why she’d be with a guy like Owen, who freaks out at the most minor things, obsesses over action figures and pop culture trivia, and can’t overcome the urge to blurt out any thought that pops into his head, no matter how inappropriate or insulting. This sort of dynamic is the movie equivalent of the TV sitcom formula where an irritating, clueless, selfish man-child somehow ends up married to a beautiful saint.

Neither Owen nor his parents (Julie Hagerty and Richard Kind) have ever met Parker’s parents, Billy and Lilly, whose cover story is that they’re globetrotting anthropologists who’ve been in the Amazon for many years studying the Yanomami tribe. To their everlasting regret, Billy and Lilly do the meet-the-in-laws thing. Owen spills enough details about his job to guarantee a robbery and an investigation because Billy and Lilly need a lot of cash fast, and Owen makes it easy for them to raise it. The story is effectively over halfway through the film’s running time but insists on continuing, serving up theoretically madcap but mostly repetitive retreads of things that happened in the first half, but with more car chases and “twists” and shooting and yelling. 

The cast is as impressive as its efforts are futile. Besides Brosnan, Barkin, Kind, and Hagerty, “The Out-Laws” features Poorna Jagannathan as Billy and Lilly’s deranged money launderer; Michael Rooker as an alcoholic FBI agent who wears a straw boater hat in lieu of genuine eccentricity; and Lil Rel Howery as the hero’s excitable, shout-y best friend, a type who’s been imported straight from “Get Out.” “The Out-Laws” does this sort of thing a lot, compulsively reminding you of better films you could be watching instead, from the “Ocean’s” pictures and “Heat” to “Die Hard” (a snippet of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony plays when Owen gets to see the inside of the most sophisticated bank vault in town). The title even boasts a grammatically unnecessary hyphen to ensure you know which classic provided its core DNA.

Overqualified bit players show up, goof around a bit, and disappear. All have been delightful presences elsewhere. This film gives them next to nothing to work with. They’re kneecapped by the sloppy, improv-y mucking about that’s become the default mainstream Hollywood comedy mode since the ’90s. There are two credited screenwriters, Evan Turner and Ben Zazove. One would assume or perhaps hope that they contributed the occasional line that has personality and seems tied to the psychology of one of the characters (as when Margie insists, “I always knew they were criminals … They drink during the day”). 

But it’s hard to tell, and in the end, who cares? Half-assed doesn’t describe this movie. It’s quarter-assed at best. It plays like a workshop filmed in full dress on lit and decorated sets. Characters blurt sentences that are not only nonsensical but are barely connected to the story, while the other characters in the scene labor to “top” them or else “react” by wincing or huffing or making a “Wow, that’s weird; why would anyone say something like that?” face. Devine’s mugging is nonstop and barely modulated. The movie is shot in the wide CinemaScope ratio for no discernible reason other than to reassure viewers that they’re watching “cinema” rather than 40 YouTube sketches strung end-to-end.  

There’s a solid tradition of droll but hard-edged slapstick comedies of the type that this film wants to evoke. It stretches from “The In-Laws” through “Midnight Run” and “The Freshman” through “Central Intelligence” and “Game Night.” But the worst five seconds of any of these is better than the best moment in “The Out-Laws.” Imagine the most irritating DreamWorks animated comedy that could exist with humans instead of animals or creatures and done in live-action. You won’t have to imagine very hard because there’s a scene in “The Out-Laws” where a robber wears a Shrek mask. Of course, he tries to do the character’s Scottish accent. And, of course, he asks one of his colleagues if he did the accent well or sounded Irish. Watch “The In-Laws” instead.  

Now playing on Netflix. 

At least Patrick Wilson still cares about “Insidious.” A staple of the James Wan-iverse (he also stars in the “Conjuring” series), Wilson makes his directorial debut with “Insidious: The Red Door.” He also stars in the movie, reprising his role as protective dad Josh Lambert from “Insidious” and “Insidious: Chapter Two.” In classic “why the hell not?” deep-franchise style, he also performs a hard-rock number with the Swedish band Ghost over the end credits. (Did you know Patrick Wilson could sing? Neither did I.) 

“The Red Door” is the fifth, and supposedly final, “Insidious” movie. And, with the caveat that you can never trust a horror franchise to end when it says it will end, it does deliver a reasonably satisfying wrap-up to the story of the Lambert family. They’ve been absent from “Insidious” since 2013, when Blumhouse pivoted to focus on Lin Shaye’s motherly psychic character Elise Rainier in a string of prequels. (Although she died in the second one, she appears here, because again — why not?) And much has happened while the series was away. 

Young Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins) has grown from a possessed little boy into a brooding 19-year-old art student beginning his first semester of college. His parents Josh (Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) have separated. And his grandmother Lorraine, who played a role in saving Dalton from the evil spirits of The Further, has died. Dalton doesn’t remember his trip into The Further, and neither does Josh; the film opens with a scene of the two of them being instructed to forget an entire year of their lives by a hypnotist. 

This is accomplished remarkably quickly—if “The Red Door” was an anti-drug PSA, its tagline would be, “Hypnosis: Not even once.” Counting backwards from 10 is all it takes to wipe huge chunks of the Lamberts’ minds clean, and those memories resurface just as easily when Dalton is asked to perform a meditation exercise in his painting class. “The Red Door” does play a little bit with the trope of artists creating possessed or otherwise supernatural works as seen in horror movies like “The Devil’s Candy.” But most of its runtime is spent exploring something less inspired. 

Here, Josh and Dalton’s gift for astral projection isn’t just a mysterious phenomenon. It’s that old saw of inherited trauma and mental illness that’s been wreaking havoc on horror movies since “Hereditary.” This manifests in the form of revelations about the father Josh never knew, which overlap with Josh’s guilt and Dalton’s resentment about the divorce. It’s not the most labored use of the metaphor in recent years — that would be another of co-screenwriter Scott Teems’ credits, the nonsensical “Halloween Kills.” But it’s such a rote theme at this point that it sucks all of the interest from the family drama.

Callbacks to other “Insidious” films are half-hearted, and “The Red Door” just seems to give up on trying to make all of the pieces fit after a while. What does work are a handful of scares in the film’s first half. As a director, Wilson proves himself familiar enough with the mechanics of a jump scare—clearly, he picked up a few things from working with Wan all those years—to give audiences what they want. An early scene where Josh hallucinates a ghastly old woman while trapped inside of an MRI machine is especially well done and ties in with a subplot where Josh seeks treatment for persistent fatigue and brain fog. (Long COVID? Nope, The Further!)

Once the college-centric main plot kicks in, however, the movie starts its slow decline towards an underwhelming finale. Visually, Wilson faithfully re-creates the misty look of the previous films. Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” warbles in a room full of broken dolls somewhere in the negative space of The Further. This is all fine — as are the jokes, the supporting characters, and the concessions to the film’s PG-13 rating by replacing explicit gore with fake vomit and pancake makeup. Wilson is pretty good as Josh, but that’s to be expected. He’s the one that’s still invested in the whole thing.