Movie Nation

Mariano lives and breathes futbol, especially as it pertains to the Mexican national team/

He nervously drinks shots with friends and relatives, bickers over whether they are “traitors” for not rooting hard enough and trash talks one and all when they score.

“If I watch the Mexican team play, they never lose,” he brags, in Spanish with English subtitles. “I am their good luck charm.”

Mariano (Adrian Uribe) leads younger brother Pancho (Carlos Manuel Vesga) singing, “Ay, yai yai yai, Canta y no llores” after every win.

OK, it’s Mexico. He sings even after a draw. A man’s got to have something.

Something more than living like a 40something mooch in the house he grew up in, more than a cushy government job which he’s barely clinging to, more than vintage 70s hair, a ’70s mustache and a dishy, indulgent Colombian girlfriend, Luz (Julieth Restropo).

“Penalty Kick  (“La pena máxima”) is a wants-to-be-daffy soccer comedy from South of the Border, where guys with limited expectations for the future and jobs they hate obsess over futbol, not “football,” as they do North of the Border.

Mariano puts off trading cars, puts off getting a loan for the new apartment Luz craves, avoids helping his mom with her property taxes.

Everything takes a back seat to “the beautiful game.”

Which is why he makes the Big Bet. Ok, Big BETS.

He bets his uncle (José Sefami) all he has, against the quarrelsome, root-against-the-home-team old man, who owns the family home. He bets his boss.

As soccer eats up every male conversation in the city, at the office, at family gatherings, in the bars, you can see how this would happen. As some folks insist that “American soccer” has “advanced” and surpassed Mexico, you can see how the film reels from reality into fantasy.

The very idea.

So with all these bets, with all this money on the line, with Luz kept in the dark about what he’s done with their apartment savings, Mariano finds the universe conspiring to keep “their good luck charm (him)” from catching Sunday’s match, in person.

It’s no wonder the oft-drunk Mariano finds himself slacking off even more at work. It’s the stress! Time to visit the priest to find out what how much they should beg the Virgin of Guadalupe to ensure success in the next match with the U.S.

“Who’s in goal?” the priest wants to know. And how much can you donate to the Mother Church, my son?

The soccer-obsessed milieu is what’s funniest about comedies like this, “The Cup,” “The Van,” or “Holy Goalie.” Even death itself (not his) can deter Mariano from his date with destiny.

But here, the situations are more promising than the execution, I must say. All this juggling should lend itself to chuckles and giggles at the excess. It doesn’t.

There’s no suspense about whether they’ll make it to the match. The comic complications never build up a head of steam. The scheming just isn’t that funny.

Uribe, a star of Mexican TV and friendly rival of “Overboard” star Eugenio Derbez (Uribe had a bit part in that) has a comic style that doesn’t translate as easily. He’s not as broad, not as manic, more of a reactor than an actor.

The supporting players give him no leg up on laughs at all, and the slack pacing (Comedy works best when it is filmed close-up, and cut to dash by at a sprint.) lets potential laughs fizzle.

Though it starts promisingly, that first scene turns out to be the life of “Penalty Kick,” and its peak moment. An hour passes before the Big Game, where it all starts to come undone.

With “Penalty Kick,” you don’t have to wait long for the first laugh. You have to wait an eternity for the second.

MPAA Rating: TV-14, sex, death

Cast: Adrian Uribe, Julieth Restrepo, Carlos Manuel Vesga, José Sefami

Credits:Directed by Rodrigo Triana, script by  Dago García, Luis Felipe Salamanca. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:29

The upshot of this July 27 release is that Scotty Bowers was a WWII vet and Hollywood hanger-on, a pimp, rent-boy, and above all else a credible kiss-and-tell authority on who was sleeping with whom, and which screen icons were gay before that closet door allowed them to live more openly.

“Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood” opens July 27.

“How it Ends” is “Zombieland” with the sobriety of “The Stand” or “The Road,” a post apocalyptic cross-country thriller that has the good sense to put its antagonistic protagonists on the road with a minimum of fuss, and a lot of unanswered questions.

It’s another tale of how quickly civilization breaks down. Men and women and people’s sense of humanity and compassion are tested, as is a Cadillac CTS, as a mismatched young lawyer (Theo James) and his hardcase prospective father-in-law (Forest Whitaker) dash across the American wasteland, from Chicago to Seattle.

A couple of quick scenes establish that Sam (Kat Graham) is pregnant, forcing her beau Will to fly to Chicago to ask for her hand from retired Marine and man of means, Tom.

That awkward dinner goes badly, almost amusingly so. But Will can’t even get back on a plane back to his love before the static hits, “Will, something’s wrong,” power failures from west to east and it all starts to break down. Will wants to wait it out. Tom? He’s not hearing it.

“Let’s look at what we know. There was an event…This moment is not about waiting for the power to come back on. The only thing we can control is what we decide to do.”

Father and fiance pile into Tom’s Caddy for a mad dash through a largely vacated-militarized America with no sign of “the enemy,” where gas is lifeblood that the thuggishly inclined will kill you for.

The fires of North Dakota, the escaped convicts of Minnesota and the redneck survivalists of Montana must be outrun or bested. A Native American mechanic (Grace Dove) who will do anything to escape “The Rez” tags along.

And still there are no answers, just “End Times” sermons and pleas for help via ham radio because cell phones and the media have gone silent, crashed Army trains and transport planes, F22 flybys and birds flocking in that eerie, horror movie style.

“Ever seen clouds like that before? What the f— is going on?”

Along the way, the young lawyer, whose skill set doesn’t match the circumstances, has to measure up to the the man of action and experience who isn’t as young as he used to be.

Not much is made of this inherent conflict, as Brooks McLaren’s screenplay is content to plow through the conventions of End of the World tales. He’s been charged with re-booting the “Rambo” franchise, so don’t expect much here.

No compassionate deed goes unpunished, no relationship can find its footing before it is ended (abruptly, usually).

We’re allowed just enough proof that there are no decent people left, that “There’s a LOT to be afraid of, out there,” that the NRA’s Armageddon wet dreams have come to pass, between brief confirmations that there is humanity in some corners of the human race.

James always makes a more sturdy than inspiring leading man, but the Great and Oscar winning Whitaker usually has a little more to play than this. Only Dove, playing a mistrusting young woman escaping a limited life for a far riskier one, makes a lasting impression.

The simplest effects — empty streets, or those jammed with the panic-stricken — pay off. The “big one” in the third act is an afterthought.

And “How It Ends” does precious little to add empathy to a quest where it is a given, urgency to a journey that takes (as indeed it would, under these conditions) forever. The sidetracks aren’t really what slows it down, but the endless expanses of road and the need to park an incident into this time of day, that twilight passage tend to slow “How It Ends” down.

Like a lot of made-for-Netflix movies, trimming to build pace, strengthen narrative drive and amp up suspense would be a blessing.

Through it all, “Single Shot” director David M. Rosenthal maintains the mystery. Paranoid gossip is all anybody has, and precious little of that. Until even this saving grace is abandoned for the third act.

“How It Ends” answers its own question, then. The film version of “the end” just peters out.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, violence

Cast: Theo James, Forest Whitaker, Kat Graham, Nicole Ari Parker, Kerry Bishé

Credits: Directed by David M. Rosenthal, script by Brooks McLaren. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:53

The first wide release cartoon to show up since “Incredibles 2” figures to own the box office this weekend.

None of the “Hotel Transylvania” movies have been all that. I mean, Adam Sandler, right? Reviews for the cruise ship installment in the series, “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation,” have been indifferent, at best.

But Box Office Mojo figures it’ll do a whopping $45 million or so business by midnight Sunday.

The Box Office Guru is figuring $40 million is more in line with this proven brand’s expectations.

Either call should put it ahead of that other proven box office brand, Dwayne Johnson. His “Skyscraper,” another vehicle pairing the wrestler/actor with his “Central Intelligence” director, should do gangbusters business — $34 says Mr. Mojo, only $32 sayeth the Guru. I figure, after “Jumanji” and “Rampage,” Johnson’s BO appeal has never been higher and at least this is better than “Rampage.” “Skyscraper” could get a lot closer to the vampire cartoon.

Everybody is predicting “Ant-Man and The Wasp” to have a big drop-off on its second weekend. Low $30s is the most Marvel can expect to bank. Anything below $32 and you can blame comic book movie fatigue, four films inside of five months.

It’s done well during the week, a HUGE Tuesday, for instance. But basically, that one’s due to fade pretty quickly.

“Sorry to Bother You” is the best reviewed picture to hit wide release this weekend, an African American/Working American satire that hits more than it misses, it should crack the top ten, earning maybe $3 million. As George S. Kaufman famously quipped, “Satire is what closes Sat. night.” And “Sorry” is no “Get Out.” 

“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” will clear $350 by Sunday, “First Purge” will clear $50, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” will be chased out of the top ten, as will “Ocean’s 8” (probably) and “Tag” (ditto), which are losing screens with all the new arrivals taking over.

There are a limited number of tropes common to “the prison picture.”

“Normal” guy gets tossed in the joint, where he adapts to the savagery or dies (see the popular “Shot Caller”). Dodging rape or death in the shower, coping with the Big House hierarchy, tattoos, “shivs,” corrupt, sadistic guards — rare is the prison picture where these elements aren’t the building blocks of the story.

This ordinary person bent by a twisted system drives “Orange is the New Black” and most other variations of the “in stir” genre.

Set your story overseas, and everything — the stakes, the violence, the corruption and the life disruption are just dialed up. Hell, even Bridget Jones had her moment of truth in a Thai prison.

“A Prayer Before Dawn” hurls a violent man into this world of violence, sort of a “Bronson” parked in “The Bangkok Hilton,” as it is called. But this true story of Brit boxer Billy Moore’s ordeal dodges a few genre conventions and turns toward “Midnight Express” in its relentless violence, fish-out-of-water sense of displacement and rare moments of humanity.

It’s not a reinvention of the genre, but it is a fairly engrossing variation on a theme. And that’s in large part due to the violence — sexual and otherwise — it recreates.

Joe Cole of TV’s “Peaky Blinders” plays Moore, a Brit kicking around Bangkok’s underground fighting scene, only not kicking enough to win. He’s an over-matched boxer in a Muay Thai MMA world, tough as nails, always on the wrong side of the law and addicted to yaba, that methamphetamine and caffeine blend that is Thailand’s contribution to illegal drug culture.

Billy gets nicked, and we skip straight past the trial and to his introduction to Thai prison life. The sea of disreputable humanity that surrounds him, the sheer scale of everything from that indoctrination strip/search to the 70 inmates (one dead) packed into his cell, tells us that tough guy or not, being slightly bigger and paler is not going to help our lad fit in with this bunch.

That first trip to the bathroom is terrifying and traumatic. Resisting the “cell boss” (Panya Yimmumphai), covered in tattoos, metal-toothed and surrounded by tough lackeys, is futile. None of that “fight the toughest guy in the yard” cliched BS. Resisting the corrupt guards won’t do him any good, either.

“No family, no money, no cigarettes” is the one English phrase they know.

Cole and the script don’t give this guy much of an interior life, but Billy seems to accept his fate, hunting for angles that allow him to get by – mastering the cigarette economy that prisons the world over traffic in, for instance.

The gambling here is over Siamese Fighting Fish fights (a funny touch). Conjugal visits? Those are from prostitutes, Thailand’s infamous “Ladyboys,” one of whom, named Fame (Pornchanok Mabklang) speaks English and starts to help him out, that one human lifeline to “outside” that Billy can count on.

The screenplay emphasizes Billy’s total immersion in this experience — hurled into anarchic chaos, speaking little of the language (the real Billy Moore taught English to the locals, supplementing  that salary with his back-alley boxing), trying to understand each fresh threat, trying to make himself understood.

Subtitles are rarely provided. We hear what Billy hears, see what Billy sees, and try to figure out what’s happening or about to happen the same way he does.

His salvation, after many trips to “the hole” and narrow escapes from death, is fighting. There’s a gym, guys train under the tutelage of a tall, charismatic, chain-smoking Muay Thai master played by Somlock Kamsing, the most impressive of several real fighters cast in supporting roles. 

It’s ancient history to generations of moviegoers now, but Alan Parker’s “Midnight Express,” scripted by Oliver Stone and about an American “Billy” imprisoned in Turkey, is the closest analog to “A Prayer Before Dawn.” That’s the gold standard for “locked-up abroad” films, but far more of a thriller (and more harrowing and emotional) than “Prayer.”

Little that we see here hasn’t turned up in other prison films, and there’s not enough to Cole’s performance to make Billy a wholly sympathetic, iconic hero/survivor. We root for him because that’s pre-ordained, fear for him because he’s our proxy in this Third World Hell.

“A Prayer Before Dawn” still manages to tell a gritty story without blinking or ever looking away, a sobering look at how even the fittest among “us” would be lucky to survive the murderous world Billy Moore misbehaved his way into.

MPAA Rating: R for strong violence including a brutal rape sequence, drug use and language throughout, some sexual content and nudity

Cast: Joe Cole, Pornchanok Mabklang, Panya Yimmumphai

Credits:Directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, script by Jonathan Hirschbein, Nick Saltrese. An A24 release.

Running time: 1:53

You know, just with kids and no “name” actors at all, no tangible presence of R.L. Stine, and lots and lots of effects?

From the looks of this, nah. October 12 may prove me wrong, but comic movie stars make the supernaturally wacky work. As in “Jumanji.”

This is dazzling, real Elizabethan eye candy. This latest “Mary, Queen of Scots” promises a more feminist, “what we have in common” spin on this bloody, sibling rivalry.

Yes, they cross that line. But scheming menfolk had a hand in creating this quarrel, men who cannot abide the thought of a woman running the show.

Guy Pearce and David Tennant also star.

“Mary, Queen of Scots” opens in December. Oscar bait? Sure looks like it.

“The Skin of the Wolf” is a wilderness battle-of-wills set in the stunning heights of the Spanish Pyrenees, a fur-covered mountain man used to getting his way confronted by a woman who takes his measure.

It’s more striking to look at than riveting to follow. But if you ever doubted Europe has wilderness to rival America’s dazzling snow-capped peaks, wild waterfalls and unforgiving forests, it’s worth a look.

Martinón (Mario Cassas of “Witching and Bitching”) is the epitome of “The Natural Man.” Bearded, self-sufficient and solitary, he hunts, farms a little and keeps a mountainous Spanish village free from wolves in the Pyrenees of the late 19th century.

He knows his trades, and treats every transaction with the same, pitiless roughness.

The village owes him money? Maybe we can work something out. Maybe the miller’s daughter, who submits to his rugged, earthy “charms” on occasion, can be bought.

Pascuala (Ruth Diaz) barely has time to get used to the routine — firewood chopping, planting, cooking and being mounted like a wolf, with about as much romantic intent — when she announces she’s pregnant.  Martinón has little chance to soften his ways, as her pregnancy quickly leads to her death.

His grief burns into rage, and it’s as an aggrieved customer that he shows up at the grist mill, dragging her body in after him. He wants his money back or else.

The miller barely has time to quake, “What kind of animal ARE you,” (in Spanish, with English subtitles), when he comes up with an “or else.”

He has another daughter. And this time around, this daughter, Adela (Irene Escolar of “Finding Altamira”), isn’t all submissive and compliant. This rutting brute won’t be burying her out back, where Martinón left the holes he dug for Pascuala open before dragging her back to her father. Adela won’t give  him the chance to drag her corpse down the mountain for a refund.

Such movies inevitably fall under the spell of their location — every exterior a picture postcard, every interior a candlelit study in shadows, rustic furniture and the primitive life. That tends to gloss over the limitations of a spare, straightforward and emotionally barren script.

Cassas hides his good looks behind a beard and labored, bearish breathing. He keeps Martinón unsentimental, a killer who keeps just enough wolves alive to maintain his trade. Trapping, then and now, is a stone-hearted practice and Cassas lets us see how this man, trapped himself in a half-ruined farmstead in the life he both inherited and made for himself, has been shaped by his environment.

Escolar’s Adela has the burden of turning the audience toward her and against Martinón, and while we may root for her, we don’t root that hard. The script doesn’t give her that chance.

Which is a lot of typing on my part to come around to saying, “Too little happens” for “The Skin of the Wolf” to pay off.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with lots of rough sex, hunting violence

Cast: Mario Cassas, Irene Escolar, Ruth Diaz

Credits: Written and directed by Samu Fuentes. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:52

Reviews weren’t stellar, because truth be told, you cannot take the world by surprise but once. Repetition is a real risk. And there isn’t much chemistry between the funny Paul Rudd and the fetching Evangeline Lilly.

But “Ant-Man and The Wasp,” the latest Marvel money-maker to stomp onto way too many screens, was at least supposed to best 2015’s “Ant-Man,” in terms of take. Opening weekend projections were in the $100 million range, modest for Marvel (a few figured $130 million was within reach).

And all weekend long, those estimates shrank. And shrank. Well, maybe $94, OK, 88, Yeah, well, $88, $81. $76?

That means, Forbes says, that the movie won’t earn, all-in, as much as its predecessor at the domestic box office.

Competition shouldn’t be an issue, but The Rock has proven to be a superhero-in-tights killer, and “Skyscraper” opens this weekend. It will do just fine, but Marvel has over-saturated the market, and that may be starting to show. The whole universe is in flux, with contracts expiring, Thanos vaporizing all manner of characters and the smartest actors (Downey, Evans, Jackson, Renner) knowing it’s time to move on.

I was figuring “Ant-Man” would have a “Solo” sized drop its second weekend, simply because it’s not a funny, interesting or coherent sequel or stand-alone popcorn pic.

Kind of “Bulworth” in feel, this trailer is about a rich “hack” author (Gabriel Byrne), not content with his Hollywood rights deals (Bob Balaban is his cynical agent) who thinks “authenticity” is a young actress/performance artist who doesn’t sell-out/compromise or seem to be getting anywhere.

Until he champions her. She’s played by Kiersey Clemons.

“An L.A. Minute” gets its LA minute in theaters in the dumping ground of late August (Aug. 24), where a picture that might click but is more likely to be an also-ran, tries to find an audience on the big screen pre-Netflix.