OPENING
Bad Boy Karthik (NR) This Indian action-comedy stars Naga Shaurya as a man who must protect his family from local gangsters. Also with Samuthirakani, Mahaboob Basha, V.K. Naresh, Sai Kumar, and Vennela Kishore. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Bhooth Bangla (NR) Akshay Kumar stars in this horror-comedy as a man who encounters supernatural spirits while planning his sister’s wedding. Also with Tabu, Paresh Rawal, Manoj Joshi, Manu Menon, Vindu Dara Singh, and Shehnaaz Gill. (Opens Friday)
Brothers Under Fire (NR) This thriller stars Kiefer Sutherland as a U.S. military officer whose squadron is pulled into drug cartel violence while attending a wedding in Mexico. Also with Ashton Sanders, Flora Martínez, Omar Chaparro, Laura Osma, Solly McLeod, Laird Akeo, Orlando Pineda, and Sebastián Sierra. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Busboys (R) David Spade and Theo Von star in and write this comedy about best friends who believe that becoming restaurant waiters will solve all their problems. Also with Jimmy Gonzales, Leah McKendrick, Arturo del Puerto, Michelle Ortiz, Tim Dillon, Lindsey Normington, and Jay Pharoah. (Opens Friday)
The Christophers (R) Steven Soderbergh’s drama stars Michaela Coel as a young artist who visits an old, reclusive painter (Ian McKellen) to forge some of his most famous paintings. Also with James Corden, Jessica Gunning, and Daniel Fearn. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Domm: Until the Last Breath (NR) Based on real events, the Bengali-language thriller stars Afran Nisho as a doctor who is kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban. Also with Puja Cherry, Chanchal Chowdhury, Dolly Johur, Abul Hayat, and Zahid Hasan. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Fireflies at El Mozote (NR) Based on historical events, this drama stars Juan Pablo Shuk as a 10-year-old Salvadoran boy seeking justice for the murder of his entire village in 1981. Also with Paz Vega, Jeff Fahey, Yancey Arias, Diana Aboujian, Gabriel Pinto, Mateo Honies, and Mena Suvari. (Opens Friday at America Cinemas Fort Worth)
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (R) Not connected to any previous version of the story, this horror film stars Natalie Grace as a young woman who returns to her family after eight years missing in Egypt. Also with Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, Gideon Emery, May Calamawy, Jonathan Gunning, and Veronica Falcón. (Opens Friday)
A Little Something Extra (R) Artus directs and co-stars in this French comedy about a pair of fugitives who hide from the police at a camp for disabled adults. Also with Théophile Leroy, Ludovic Boul, Stanislas Clement, Marie Colin, Gad Abecassis, Alice Belaïdi, Céline Groussard, and Clovis Cornillac. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Lorne (R) Morgan Neville’s documentary profiles Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels. Also with Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Colin Jost, John Mulaney, Mike Myers, Andy Samberg, Maya Rudolph, Sarah Sherman, Paul Simon, and Steve Martin. (Opens Friday)
Mile End Kicks (R) Barbie Ferreira stars in this comedy as a music critic who becomes romantically involved with members of a band that she’s covering. Also with Jay Baruchel, Juliette Gariépy, Robert Naylor, Isaiah Lehtinen, Emily Lê, and Devon Bostick. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Our Hero, Balthazar (R) Jaeden Martell stars in this comedy as a rich New York teenager who travels to Texas for an online crush. Also with Asa Butterfield, Noah Centineo, Anna Baryshnikov, Will River, Avan Jogla, Chris Bauer, Pippa Knowles, and Jennifer Ehle. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Pahad (NR) This Nepalese drama stars Arun Chhetri, Panchani Ghimire, Priyanka Karki, Shiva Shrestha, Sunil Thapa, Ankit Khadka, and Rabindra Singh Bhaniya. (Opens Friday)
Pallichattambi (NR) This Malayalam-language comedy stars Tovino Thomas as a village man who constantly schemes to make money. Also with Kayadu Lohar, Nibraz Noushad, Sudheer Karamana, Vijayaraghavan, and T.G. Ravi. (Opens Friday)
Panda Plan 2: The Magical Tribe (NR) Jackie Chan stars in this comedy as a man taking care of a giant panda when they stumble on a lost tribe. Also with Ma Li, Qiao Shan, Pan Binlong, Song Muzi, Wang Yinglu, Yu Rongguang, and Zhang Zidong. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
$POSITIONS (NR) Brandon Daley’s drama stars Michael Kunicki as an office worker who gambles his life savings on cryptocurrency speculation. Also with Vinny Kress, Trevor Dawkins, Kaylyn Carter, Reagan Fitzgerald, Guido Z. Cameli, Jeffrey A. Hunter, and Paul Gordon. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Salmokji: Whispering Water (NR) This Korean horror film is about a film crew discovering something strange while updating road views for the government. Starring Kim Hye-yoon, Lee Jong-won, Kim Jun-han, Oh Dong-min, and Yoon Jae-chan. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Whistler (NR) This English-language Colombian horror film stars Juan Pablo Raba and Diane Guerrero as a bereaved couple haunted by mysterious forces during a getaway in Venezuela. Also with Indhira Serrano, Laura Sofía Domínguez, Samantha Chaverra, Laureano Olivarez, Diego Landaeta, and Norberto Rivera. (Opens Friday at America Cinemas Fort Worth)
NOW PLAYING
Beast (R) Russell Crowe co-wrote this Australian sports drama, though I’m not sure why he received a credit considering that this MMA film is pretty well ripped off from the first Rocky. Daniel MacPherson portrays a former heavyweight-contender, ex-convict, and fisherman who gets back into the fight game because of his family’s financial troubles, while Crowe portrays the old trainer whom he left in the lurch. MacPherson, at least, is trying to give a real performance here, but the extreme formulaic nature of the script winds up defeating him. Also with Bren Foster, Amy Shark, Mojean Aria, Kelly Gale, Saphira Moran, George Burgess, Nathan Phillips, and Luke Hemsworth.
Dacoit: A Love Story (NR) Adivi Sesh stars in this Indian thriller as an ex-convict seeking revenge on the girlfriend (Mrunal Thakur) who betrayed him. Also with Anurag Kashyap, Prakash Raj, Resad Ajim, Sunil, Zayn Marie Khan, and Vaibhav Tatwawadi.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge (NR) Almost four hours long, and with enough double-crosses and action set pieces to make the time fly by. Ranveer Singh reprises his role as an Indian Sikh undercover agent who passes himself off as a Pakistani Muslim and takes control of Karachi’s criminal underworld by betraying and murdering his boss (Akshaye Khanna) before doing the same to rival gangs, the police, and ISI. Maybe the extended flashback detailing the hero’s journey from the military to prison to the spy trade could have been dispensed with, along with the nationalist crap about the greatness of Narendra Modi’s India, but writer-director Aditya Dhar has made a successful jumbo-sized crime epic. This isn’t as thoughtful or as good as The Godfather, but it’s worthy to be mentioned in the same breath. Also with Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt, R. Madhavan, Sara Arjun, Rakesh Bedi, Manav Gohil, Gaurav Gera, Danish Pandor, Bimal Oberoi, Danish Iqbal, Mustafa Ahmed, Udaybir Sandhu, Salim Siddiqui, Ashwin Dhar, Ankit Sagar, and Yami Gautam.
The Drama (R) You’ve seen movies about weddings where everything goes to hell, but never one quite like this. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play an engaged couple who are slated to get married in a week, but she throws a wrench in the works during a party game when her friends reveal the worst thing they’ve ever done, and she comes up with a topper that horrifies everyone. Writer-director Kristoffer Borgli previously did Dream Scenario, but this is closer to the edgelord stuff he did in his native Norway. While he fails to comment meaningfully on America’s gun culture, he does make the film succeed as a cracked sort of romance between two appalling human beings whose flaws complement one another, and Pattinson steals away acting honors as an overwhelmed guy with an epic case of pre-wedding jitters. Also with Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie, Hailey Benton Gates, Sydney Lemmon, Hannah Gross, Anna Baryshnikov, and Damon Gupton.
Exit 8 (PG-13) Unusual enough to stand out. Based on the recent video game, this Japanese horror film stars Kazunari Ninomiya as a nameless young man who becomes trapped in the subway, with signs that point him toward the exit but instead lead him in a big circle where he repeatedly passes by the same people and landmarks. The movie is actually about deeper psychological issues, as the hero finds out that he’s about to be a father and has to work through his own trauma from being an abandoned child. Director Genki Kawamura rings enough changes on near-identical subway halls to prevent this from becoming too monotonous. Also with Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Nana Komatsu, and Hirota Ōtsuka.
Faces of Death (R) Too meta for its own good. Barbie Ferreira stars in this horror film as a social media content moderator who comes across videos that appear to be imitating the fake murders in the real-life 1978 horror film by the same name, except with actual deaths. The original film is a fascinating artifact, but this movie referencing it doesn’t do enough with the source, nor does it offer up much commentary on what it is to watch violent videos all day for a living. The heroine would do a lot more to stop the murders going on in her real life if she would just stop acting crazy, something that the backstory about her traumatic past doesn’t explain. Director/co-writer Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) needs to stick to low-budget thrillers, it appears. Also with Dacre Montgomery, Jermaine Fowler, Josie Totah, JD Evermore, Aaron Holliday, and Charli XCX.
A Great Awakening (PG-13) Thoughtful enough to be the next great Christian drama, but taken down by other issues. The film follows both Benjamin Franklin (John Paul Sneed) as he sets up a printing business in the American colonies and George Whitefield (Jonathan Blair) as he turns his ambitions from acting to preaching the Word of God in Britain. The two men meet before the American revolution, and the deist Franklin finds inspiration in Whitefield’s speeches. It’s a good story, but director/co-writer Joshua Enck takes too long building things up — we’re more than an hour into the story before our two main characters finally meet. The writers (who also include Blair) do well to traverse the limits of religious faith and the need for human action based on that, but the whole thing has too many stops on the heroes’ journey. It needed some neater editing. Also with Russell Dean Schultz, Robert Bigley, JT Schaeffer, Josh Bates, Carson Burkett, Stephen Foster Harris, Ryan Jameson Hippe, and Daniel Stargel.
Hamlet (R) This modern-dress South Asian version of Shakespeare’s tragedy is best when it embraces its Indian side. Riz Ahmed plays the melancholy prince, who returns to England for his father’s funeral and discovers that the family’s real estate empire is built on predatory practices. The film has a creepy interlude when the ghost of Hamlet’s father (Avijit Dutt) speaks to him in Hindi, and the play within the play here becomes a traditional Indian dance number where the dancers re-enact the king’s murder in front of Claudius (Art Malik). Yet too often director Aneil Karia reduces Shakespeare’s drama to repressed people talking to each other in posh interiors. Even Ahmed seems off his usual game, playing Hamlet with too much undifferentiated pain. The best parts of this movie point to what it could have been. Also with Morfydd Clark, Sheeba Chaddha, Joe Alwyn, Eben Figueiredo, Kash Ahmad, Rajiv Sharma, and Timothy Spall.
Hoppers (PG) Maybe it doesn’t tug at the heartstrings like Pixar’s best movies do, but it’s funny enough that you won’t care. A 19-year-old college student (voiced by Piper Curda) discovers that her biology professor (voiced by Kathy Najimy) has developed a program to temporarily put human consciousness into realistic robot animals, so she uses it to talk to the animals and save a beloved forest glade from being demolished. She does point out that this is the plot of Avatar, but this movie is better thought out than Avatar because it recognizes how complicated the fight for environmental justice can become. This movie delivers on entertainment value better than most recent Pixar entries, making the kids laugh without talking down to the adults. That’s all the animation giant ever needed to do. Additional voices by Jon Hamm, Bobby Moynihan, Dave Franco, Eduardo Franco, Tom Law, Vanessa Bayer, Ego Nwodim, Melissa Villaseñor, Meryl Streep, and the late Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Love Insurance Kompany (NR) Pradeep Ranganathan and Krithi Shetty star in this comedy as two people working on a software algorithm meant to produce guaranteed love for everyone. Also with S.J. Suryah, Seeman, Yogi Babu, Shah Ra, Malavika, Sunil Reddy, and Nifya Razul.
Project Hail Mary (PG-13) Based on Andy Weir’s novel, this science-fiction movie is entertaining enough for the price of admission and maybe even an upcharge to a premium format. Ryan Gosling portrays an astronaut who travels to a star light-years away to find a solution to why our sun is dying. He meets an alien being whose world is facing the same problem with its sun. Gosling spends a great deal of time talking to himself, partly because his character is trying to keep from going insane from the solitude and partly because he has trouble communicating with the alien, but if any actor can make this assignment look easy, it’s Gosling. The filmmaking team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie) drills down into the trial-and-error that goes into the characters’ scientific work and manages to find both humor and beauty in the vastness of space. The movie earns its uplift because of the way the two life forms are willing to collaborate to save their civilizations. Also with Sandra Hüller, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Priya Kansara, Orion Lee, and Lionel Boyce. Voices by James Ortiz and an uncredited Meryl Streep.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (R) The sequel was never going to equal Grandma’s splattery and hilarious death in the first movie, but I was still hoping for more. Samara Weaving reprises her role from the original, being placed in a new game with her estranged sister (Kathryn Newton) as they try to avoid being killed by representatives of four families from different countries vying for control of the world. Newton is a nice addition, as is Sarah Michelle Gellar as one of the rich people hunting them, and the movie does have a funny fight scene between two women who have both been pepper-sprayed. Even so, the thriller plot keeps stopping to hash out some uninteresting buried issues between the sisters, and the comedy set pieces are neither as effective nor as frequent as the original’s. The movie really missed a trick not using the Jackson 5 song that shares its title. Also with Elijah Wood, Shawn Hatosy, Nestor Carbonell, Kevin Durand, Olivia Cheng, Antony Hall, Dan Beirne, Varun Saranga, Masa Lizdek, Nadeem Umar-Khitab, Maia Jae, Juan Pablo Romero, and David Cronenberg.
Reminders of Him (PG-13) This sleep-inducing adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel offers considerably less entertainment value than either It Ends With Us or Regretting You. Maika Monroe stars as an ex-convict released from prison after her driving while high results in a traffic accident that kills her boyfriend (Rudy Pankow). She returns to her hometown in Laramie to see the daughter (Zoe Kosovic) whom she gave birth to inside, only to fall for her ex-boyfriend’s best friend (Tyriq Withers). Withers holds up his end, but Monroe’s idea of playing someone traumatized and grieving is to deliver a bunch of flat line readings. Also with Lauren Graham, Lainey Wilson, Monika Myers, Nicholas Duvernay, Jennifer Robertson, and Bradley Whitford.
Scream 7 (R) Can this series die already? This latest installment is certainly bad enough to kill it. Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott, who has moved to a new small town and opened a cafe when a new Ghostface claiming to be original movie killer Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) targets her teenage daughter (Isabel May). Writer-director Kevin Williamson’s script is witless, and this new town has cops who disappear for long stretches without any explanation. The same goes for Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), to the point where I started to think she was the killer. Nostalgia is all this series has left. At least Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega got out of this. Also with Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Anna Camp, Joel McHale, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Asa Germann, Kraig Dane, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, Timothy Simons, Ethan Embry, Mark Consuelos, Scott Foley, Laurie Metcalfe, and David Arquette.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (PG) The Mario brothers (voiced by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day) rescue Yoshi (voiced by Donald Glover) while Bowser Jr. (voiced by Benny Safdie) kidnaps Princess Rosalina (voiced by Brie Larson) in this sequel. While there’s entirely too much going on, this is still better than the first movie. The new voice talent gives the thing some new energy and the filmmakers inject some visual wit that wasn’t there in the original, such as interludes made to look like sock puppet theater and Japanese anime, as well as a casino whose gaming floor extends to the walls and ceiling. Some Mario-fied Minions make an appearance as well. There’s certainly worse stuff made for the little ones out there. Additional voices by Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, Issa Rae, Luis Guzmán, and Glen Powell.
They Will Kill You (R) A mess, but better than either Scream 7 or Ready or Not 2. Zazie Beetz stars in this comic horror film as an ex-convict who takes a job as a maid at a Manhattan hotel, only to discover that the staffers and guests plan to offer her up as a human sacrifice to Satan in exchange for eternal life. The Russian director/co-writer Kirill Sokolov (Why Don’t You Just Die?) continues to show a flair for bloody slapstick in his fight sequences, one of which has our heroine locking herself in a closet in front of the bad guys, who look at each other and wonder what she just accomplished. The cool visuals and humor don’t make up for the way the movie runs out of story and invention well before its gory climax. Also with Patricia Arquette, Tom Felton, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Chris van Rensburg, and Heather Graham.
undertone (R) There’s less to this fascinating experiment than meets the ear. Nina Kiri portrays a podcaster who deals with audio footage of possibly supernatural phenomena when she starts hearing weird noises inside the house where she’s caring for her terminally ill mother (Michèle Duquet). First-time filmmaker and podcaster Ian Tuason shot this movie inside his actual childhood home in Toronto, but the personal resonances don’t come through, and the story has too many loose ends hanging and interesting thematic notes that go unexplored. However, given that it was inevitable that we would have a horror film about people making a podcast, he does squeeze more out of the setup than you might expect. Voices by Adam DiMarco, Jeff Yung, Keana Lyn Bastidas, Sarah Beaudin, and Ari Millen.
You, Me & Tuscany (PG-13) Pleasant enough, I guess. Halle Bailey stars in this comedy as a thwarted chef-turned-professional New York housesitter who finds herself temporarily homeless until an Italian businessman (Lorenzo de Moor) tells her about a family villa that’s sitting empty in his absence. She travels to the Italian countryside and crashes at his place without permission, but when his family discovers her, she lies and tells them that she’s his fiancée. To complicate matters further, she falls for his cousin (Regé-Jean Page). The farce here is leaden, but Page’s charm helps to smooth over the bumpy parts. The novelty of a Black American woman finding herself at home amid Italy’s sun-dappled scenery and fine food is enough to put this across. Her Italianized recipe for shrimp and grits sounds like it would work, too. Also with Isabella Ferrari, Marco Calvani, Stella Peccolo, Paolo Sassanelli, Tommaso Cassissa, Desirèe Pöpper, Stefania Casini, and Aziza Scott.
Dallas Exclusives
Heads or Tails? (NR) This Italian Western is about a woman (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) who flees across the country’s wilderness pursued by Buffalo Bill (John C. Reilly). Also with Alessandro Borghi, Peter Lanzani, Mirko Artuso, Gabriele Silli, and Gianni Garko.
Holy Ghetto (NR) iLan Azoulai’s documentary is about four people who frequent Tel Aviv’s red-light district.
Palestine 36 (NR) This historical drama is about various characters during the Palestinian revolt against British rule in 1936. Starring Hiam Abbass, Robert Aramayo, Karim Daoud Anaya, Liam Cunningham, Billy Howle, Saleh Bakri, Yasmine al-Massri, and Jeremy Irons.
