THIS WEEK:
The Guilty And you think your job keeps you chained to a desk. Imagine being a Copenhagen beat cop busted down to the level of emergency dispatcher, then getting a frantic call from a kidnap victim you can't leave the room to save. That's the high-concept premise of this single-location suspenser, in which our intrepid hero tries to solve the crime and rescue the victim without ever abandoning his post. It's Denmark's official submission for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, and a picture Variety says should send Hollywood scrambling to lens a remake. You guys, don't give them "ideas." (NR; tentatively scheduled to open Friday at Enzian Theater, Maitland)
Hunter Killer Here's a military thriller whose time may be now. An American submarine commander (Gerard Butler) has to rescue the Russian president when the latter is kidnapped by rogue elements within his own government. That seems like a scenario tailor-made for the current political moment, in which we are expected to believe Vlad "the Lad" Putin is a figure of sympathy only slightly less compelling than your average bonesaw-wielding Saudi Arabian. So why are most critics treating Hunter Killer as if it's instead a curious anachronism and time capsule? Maybe it's because the script – which is based on a novel published in 2012 – foresaw an America that would by now be governed by a female chief executive. Oops! (Although the writers did account for the bizarre phenomenon of enduring Hillary hatred by naming the character in question Ilene Dover. I'm not kidding, her name is Ilene Dover.) Or the qualms could be more thematic, with most reviewers saying they liked this movie a lot better when it was called The Hunt for Red October. And it's even coming out in October, so there's that! The consensus at press time: a shitty flick even by Butler's established standard, and that's really saying something. (R)
Indivisible In a film that's both faith-based and inspired by a true story (fellas, you have to pick one or the other), deployment to Iraq tests the relationship between an army chaplain and his wife. I'm hoping these crazy kids make it work, 'cause I can't stand the thought of all those Baghdadis having died in vain. (PG-13)
Johnny English Strikes Again At this point, Rowan Atkinson has generated more than enough memes to justify his existence before God, yet he keeps on making movies anyway. In the third film in his Johnny English franchise, an epidemic of global cyberterrorism draws the titular bumbling secret agent out of retirement, to prove that he can still pull pratfalls with the best of them. Or can he? The Guardian says Strikes Again trades in gags that aren't as "inventive and focused" as the glory days of Atkinson's Mr. Bean, and wonders why the British film industry can't give him a role that's worthy of his talent. Yeah, I don't think that's a job for the British film industry; I think that's a job for Giphy, and they're already handling it quite nicely. (PG)
