Movie Nation

It’s tempting — entirely TOO tempting — to write off “Shelter” as another exercise in an actress dressing down and uglying up. Beautiful women of the movies like to take a walk on the unkempt and homeless side, often just to prove that they can. Meryl Streep in “Ironweed,” Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning turn in “Monster,” just two examples that come to mind.

And Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly is as stunning as ever, even in the gaunt, heroin-addicted New York street person guise of Hannah in this film, written and directed by her husband, Paul Bettany.

But you have to look for it. A little, anyway. The model’s cheekbones are there, and when she trots out a dollop of French, or explains “cognitive dissonance” to the Nigerian illegal migrant (Anthony Mackie) who becomes her protector and lover, there’s a hint of the better life such beauty afforded her.

Her panhandling sign, “I used to be someone” says it all.

Hannah is truly addicted and absolutely messed up, pulling down her pants to shoot up, hanging out on bridges, screwing up the courage it would take to commit suicide.

Tahir follows her, saves her, questions her and tries to understand her.

He is Muslim, and one arrest away from being deported. He visits an Imam who can keep him going a little longer, with a handout of clothes or shoes. He still prays.

But when he is with Hannah, he slips. Such as when they break into a posh brownstone to get a few nights’ relief from the weather.

“I am not the first Muslim to drink,” he confesses.

He, too, has a past.

“Islam is a beautiful flower,” he admits. “But sometimes, it needs thorns.”

Tahir did terrible things. Hannah did terrible things, and still does. She preys on Muslim street vendors, stealing their wares, when they leave their parkside stalls to pray together. She owes a drug dealer money.

Bettany has conjured up a nice slice of New York street life, capturing how hard it is to be this poor, how every little blip in your routine, the weather or your health can be that day’s disaster.

Like his wife, he’s known for introspective, brooding and soulful performances, and Connelly manages that, here and there.

Anthony Mackie’s fall of 2015 is allowing him to give full voice to his range; a serious, haunted turn with an African accent here, a deadpan overgroomed cop in “Love the Coopers,” and a touch of the comic gonzo in “The Night Before.”

But as it meanders from over-familiar set-pieces and cliches — Tahir drums on empty paint buckets for money, predators face them at every turn, a callous system trips them up, and when they break into that brownstone, naturally they play dress-up — “Shelter” loses its way.

You can’t wholly write it off. But as the slight surprises if offers dry up, it flirts with becoming a trite exercise acted out by dilettantes. Which is the last thing they wanted it to be.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, with graphic violence, drug use, sex, profanity

Cast: Anthony Mackie, Jennifer Connelly
Credits: Written and directed by Paul Bettany.  A
Screen Media release.

Running time: 1:45

The less said about the flop “The Last Witch Hunter,” the better.

But consider this. Would it have been made without Vin Diesel? And would Vin Diesel still have a career if the “Fast and Furious” franchise earned the sort of returns it so richly deserves?

Most of those movies are empty junkfood, at best, a marketing exercise in cross-cultural casting and automotive product placement. That goes for the hilariously, obscenely overrated “Furious 7,” which blew up the box office, and which delayed this “Witch Hunter” dog from reaching theaters.

The posing, growling Diesel has no career without a cool car beside him. Which is why his character, Kaulder, has an Aston Martin Rapide in “Witch Hunter.”

“Eight hundred years, I’ve been on this road. Always huntin’.”

I had no idea Aston Martin had been in production that long, but no matter. Kaulder has been made immortal, like his quarry, the world’s witches. Their special effects-augmented queen (Julie Engelbrecht) wants to bring on the witchworld apocalypse — aka “The Black Death.”

Kaulder’s going to need help bringing her down. That comes from a good witch, Chloe (Rose Leslie of “Game of Thrones”), a sidekick (Elijah Wood) and a Catholic sage wise in the ways of witches, who also narrates the film (Michael Caine).

“I’ve waited my whole life for the opportunity to help you!”

This is the sort of paycheck piffle that will keep Caine from gaining an Oscar nomination for “Youth.” Leslie probably wishes she was back on “Thrones,” stripped or unstripped.

“Who said a witch can’t hunt witches?”

Yeah, it took a trio of writers (with “Dracula Untold” among their credits) to deliver that zinger.

Breck Eisner (“The Crazies”) serves up a blur of dark and apocalyptic effects and parks the wooden Diesel right in front of them. To no avail.  Would Eisner have a career without that magic surname? Probably not.

This abortion of a thriller fails, utterly, and bombed completely. So even though there’s a “Witch Hunter 2” in development, don’t count on it. Still, if you “Fast/Furious” fanatics keep propping up that franchise, who knows? Diesel’s got to do something between Dodge Charger commercials.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images

Cast: Vin Diesel, Michael Caine, Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood
Credits: Directed by Breck Eisner, script by Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless. A Summit release.

Running time: 1:46

“Trumbo” is a warm and witty profile in courage. It’s about the principled, prolific and unfairly punished screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, he of “The Hollywood Ten,” men persecuted for their beliefs during the Hollywood witch hunt that took place during the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s.

And if that name and those phrases don’t ring a bell, this Jay Roach film, essentially a very good R-rated TV movie, makes a perfectly entertaining history lesson.

Bryan Cranston plays the dapper and erudite Trumbo, a man his peers seem to resent, or at least have limited patience for.

“Do you have to say everything  like it’s going to be chiseled into a rock?”

We meet Trumbo and his fellow Hollywood liberals — some of them even members of the Communist Party — just after World War II. The House Unamerican Activities Committee, a shameful and shockingly long-lived exercise in political grand-standing and civil rights trampling, is just gearing up for a witch hunt.

And some of Hollywood — directors, the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (a viperish Helen Mirren) and draft dodging he-man John Wayne (David James Elliott) — seem to welcome it.

“Go off and join the Bolshoi Ballet,” the Duke suggests.

“They’re all Nazis,” their targets insist. “They’re just too cheap to buy the uniforms.”

Trumbo (Bryan Cranston), his pal,the gangster star Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg), and other writers (Louis C.K. is Arlen Herd, Alan Tudyck is Ian McKellan Hunter) try to debate with the so-called Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. To no avail.

The subpoenas are handed down, a strategy is devised. And we see a defiant Trumbo stand up to the little bullies of Congress, and face contempt charges.

Fine. Then, a Supreme Court justice dies, the court tilts conservative, and the entire Ten face prison. Trumbo, a raging success in Hollywood with a ranch, a beautiful ex-dancer wife (Diane Lane) and three kids (Elle Fanning plays the oldest), manfully takes his punishment for principles.

But when they get out, the Alliance, and its most virulent mouthpiece Hopper, bully the studios into blacklisting them. None can work. Or so the super patriots think. The writers have other ideas.

I like the way Dean O’Gorman (as Kirk Douglas), Stuhlbarg and Elliott suggest rather than full-on impersonate their iconic screen characters. Elliott plays Wayne as big, cunning and maybe a little petty. He brings to mind what a Wayne friend said back in the day, “For a big man, the Duke could be awfully small.”

Stuhlbarg, having the greatest fall of his career thanks to “Pawn Sacrifice,” “Steve Jobs” and “Trumbo,” gives us little of the “Nyah, take’em out back, boys” Edward G. This is the urbane, effete art collector who works so he can build his collection. Fanning is terrific as always as a daughter who inherits her father’s sense of fair play, and his stubbornness.

Louis C.K. has a big role, and never for a second makes us forget he’s a man of his time. He’s out of place and miscast as the sickly Herd.

But for all the period detail — clips from real Hollywood figures standing up to (Gregory Peck, Lucille Ball) the witch hunt, and those embracing it (Reagan, Robert Taylor) and able supporting work, it is Cranston who must carry the picture, and does. He wears the up-turned mustache, the horn-rimmed glasses and cigarette holder with ease.

But the “TV movie” label begins and ends with his performance. There’s little to suggest this little man (Cranston isn’t) is larger-than-life. It’s an intimate (lots of close-ups), small-screen performance that doesn’t give us the bombast, speaking to history, that the character demands.

“There are many angry and ignorant people in the world,” Trumbo tells his children, and us. “They seem to be breeding in record numbers.”

In his public appearances on film and TV still available, Trumbo never uttered an unconsidered, unquotable thought. His words read like thunder, even if his voice rarely did. Cranston and the screenplay seem more muted than history remembers Dalton Trumbo.

But the man’s wit and the actor’s comic timing serve “Trumbo” beautifully, and this spills over into the script and the rest of the movie. John Goodman and Stephen Root are hilarious as cut-rate film producers who hire the blacklisted writers (under assumed names) for a song. To write really bad movies.

“Look, we bought a gorilla suit. We’ve gotta use it.”

And the comic director Roach (“Meet the Parents,” “Austin Powers”) makes these two hours saunter by, a tragedy regarded today as both a dark period in American history, and a farce.

It’s a shame the movie never puffs up into the sort of grand statement delivered in epic form that they plainly intended it to be.

MPAA Rating: R for language including some sexual references

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Diane Lane, Elle Fanning, Michael Stuhlbarg
Credits: Directed by Jay Roach, script by John McNamara. A Bleecker St. release.

Running time: 2:04

Sure, “Man Up” stars two of our favorite on-screen funny folk — Lake “In a World…” Bell and Simon “Shaun of the Dead” Pegg.

But Bell, playing a lovelorn Brit, takes a while to settle into the character and the accent. And Pegg? He takes forever to show up.

And once his character does arrive — she meets him under the clock at London’s Waterloo Station under false pretenses because he thinks she’s his blind date — there’s all this awkward setting up of the silliness to come.

Nancy (Bell) is pretending she’s this annoying 24 year-old triathlete and self-help book fan she met on the train, the true blind date for newly-divorced Jack (Pegg). He’s trying to impress her, prattling on so fast that she never has a chance to explain that she has the self-help dating book he’s supposed to recognize her with by mistake.

The date begins clumsily, the lies pile up. They stumble into some obsessed barkeep from her past,  Sean (Rory Kinnear, hilarious), a guy capable of blackmailing her into sexual favors just to keep her secret.

“It would appear that I have you OVER a barrel, at last!”

But Nancy and Jack both memorize movie quotes, both like beer and both like to bowl. Something could click, here. And it does.

This comedy by the director of “The In-Betweeners Movie” and written by Tess Morris doesn’t truly spark to life until Sean shows up, at about the 35 minute mark. The bland predictability falls away, the banter lights up and the two leads set off real sparks

Why? Because they fight. They’ve “shared” all these likes/dislikes which the dating book (“Six Billion People & You”) ordained that they try. They’ve sized each other up. And in just an hour or so, they know where to stick the needle.

“The BITTER look really suits you.”

“Whoa, lemme guess, ‘I’m all wounded and rejected and I need comforting by a woman HALF MY AGE.'”

And then Jack’s ex (Olivia Williams, who does brittle well) shows up, and it’s game-on as the two quarreling blind daters put on a salty show of “porn sex” bragging and worse.

Screenwriter Morris sets this against the 40th anniversary party of Nancy’s parents, which is supposed to feature a speech by her, but which she’s skipping for this whim date.

The wistful and poignant stuff doesn’t play as well as the surprising setbacks to romance, many of them delivered by the weirdly randy Sean at the most opportune times.

Not entirely hilarious, largely owing to that empty opening, “Man Up” can be recommended for that promising midway mark fight to its flash mob finale, 40 or so minutes that will make you grin and remember why so many of us consider Pegg and Bell (lately on TV’s “Wet, Hot American Summer” farce) the most reliable names in any indie comedy’s credits.

MPAA Rating: R for language and sexual references

Cast: Lake Bell, Simon Pegg, Rory Kinnear, Olivia Williams
Credits: Directed by Ben Palmer , script by Tess Morris. A Saban/BBC Films release.

Running time: 1:28

It was obvious from the product tie-ins, the clumsy way the studio promoted it and the early reviews that “Spectre” represented a pretty serious fall-off in the again-burgeoning James Bond franchise.

Not fatal, just serious. It turns out the critical fall-off was steeper than the box office one, but it still was telling. Box office returns on opening weekend show this $245 million film, opening on more screens, managed $73 million. Those numbers are closer to “Quantum of Solace” ($67 million). Worldwide, it’ll do great. But the U.S. take, with a 50-65% falloff the second week — steeper than usual because it’s just not as good — looks to be significantly lower than “Skyfall.”

Daniel Craig knew it, which is why there was all this British press about him being ready to exit the franchise. So maybe all the speculation about who will replace him will gain urgency. He’s done well, but this franchise is entirely too costly to risk on somebody less committed to the part.

They spent the money this time, and the digitally augmented explosions and set-piece Villain’s Lair stuff was still only mildly impressive. Christoph Waltz was entirely too-on-the-nose as the villain, and probably entirely too costly. He gave us nothing unexpected.

The car chase was feeble, and so on and so on.

So, $73 this weekend, probably low $30s next. It will have to get into the black playing overseas. As for its place in the Bond Box Office All Time Sweepstakes?

Oddly enough, “The Peanuts Movie” did almost what “Wreck it Ralph” did opening against “Skyfall,” as Box Office Mojo notes.

It opened bigger than “Hotel Transylvania,” but just below “Hotel Transylvania 2.”

Decent, on the low end of higher expectations for the film ($50something should have been within reach). But whatever the familiarity of the TV specials, kids are decades removed from this brand, so that’s a hats-off to parents for dragging their kids to a 3D version of the animation they loved when they were children. The second weekend should be strong, though it won’t do the repeat business of some animated fare. It’s not a “ride,” but more a sweet and soulful kids-life cartoon.

Look for its overall take to be in the $165 million or so “Hotel Transylvania 2” will have taken in when it loses the last of its screens.

“The Martian” will clear $200 million by Thursday.

“Goosebumps” is doing well, but less than spectacular. It will be lucky to hit $80 million before its screens disappear.

“Bridge of Spies” is holding audience and screens, but doesn’t look like it will reach $70, unless it gets an Oscar bump.

“The Intern” has done better than that, and remains in the Top Ten one more week.

The Christian football drama “Woodlawn” has made its money, and will lose screens and audience when “My All American” opens Friday. Probably.

“Suffragette” isn’t yet setting the world on fire in limited release, “Steve Jobs” will not hit $20 without Oscar help, “Spotlight” is winning the per screen average in very limited release.

“The Armor of Light” is a documentary of faith, a film about a dramatic conversion.

The Rev. Rob Schenck doesn’t find Jesus over the course of it. He’s been an evangelical preacher for decades and a mainstay in the modern anti-Abortion movement for almost as long.

What filmmakers Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes capture — apparently, at his invitation — is his come-to-Jesus moment over guns. How can a Christian, this lifelong committed ultra-conservative wants to know, a preacher whose “natural constituency” is “evangelical…Tea Party Republicans,” reconcile the unholy alliance between the National Rifle Association and Christianity, “Thou shalt not kill” with “Thou shalt carry, openly or concealed, a gun?”?

The 50something Schenck is shown, in archival footage, deeply involved in strident protests over abortion, protests connected with the radical Operation Rescue anti-abortion group. He is not quite able to shrug off one widow’s blaming him for espousing the beliefs that got her doctor-husband murdered.

“People under my spiritual care are capable of this,” he says of the activist turned murderer who killed that Buffalo doctor.

He ministered to the Pennsylvania Amish families whose school-age daughters were murdered by another woman-hating nut with a gun fetish. Mass shootings, school shootings, they take on toll on Schenck’s psyche.

But it wasn’t until the Navy Yard mass shooting in Washington, where he has his Ten Commandments-fronted lobbying office, that “I realized, I have to address this.”

We see the preacher get acquainted with his subject — going to a rifle range, trying out pistols, a shotgun and an assault rifle. He wants to understand their appeal.

He tests his new thinking out on “my focus group,” the evangelical preachers he represents and ministers to as part a national organization of such denominations. We see white preachers, male and female, younger and old, frown, fold their arms and rationalize their interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Ten Commandments and the New Testament.

Disney and Hughes’ film ties Rev. Rob’s spiritual quest to Jordan Davis, a teen murdered in Jacksonville by a hothead who emptied a pistol into the SUV the kid was in because he and his friends were playing their music too loud. Rev. Rob has to meet Lucia McBath, Jordan’s mom. Can this pro-choice black Christian mother find common ground with a white ultra-conservative preacher closely tied to a group who — its critics say — is bent on the reactionary return to a patriarchal church having control over women?

“The Armor of Light” isn’t a mind-changing documentary. But Disney/Hughes’ film suggests that Schenck’s conversion is the beginning of an attempted unwinding of “a Faustian pact” (his words) between the NRA and evangelical Christianity.

He’s a smart guy, knows the history of evangelical politics, from Democrats supporting Jimmy Carter to the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson push into Republicanism, backing Ronald Reagan, and the way Reagan tied his flock to the NRA, a sportsman’s organization taken over by big money from the gun manufacturers. He recognizes “the racial component” to all this. Black evangelicals may share abortion and gay rights views, in some cases, with white ones. On guns? When he speaks to them, he sees how they’re poles apart.

The film can seem self-serving, as Schenck brings a film crew along to his debates with evangelical braintrusts and swims against the current of his own constituency. The most shrill figures in the movie are NRA chief Wayne LaPierre, and hearing his word-for-word “Good guys with guns/more polite society” etc. talking points parroted by the combative Troy Newman of Operation Rescue lays out the problem, plain and simple.

But we appreciate that it takes guts to “speak truth to power” on this subject to this crowd, and we see the scowls as this passionate preacher turns on the heat on allies who had never questioned his wisdom, reason and debating skills before.

Will he get anywhere? Will he be ostracized? Will he have a constituency when all is said and done? The NRA takes out politicians. Lobbyist preachers are no different.

But it’s fascinating to see this subject tackled in this way by this corner of the population, or at least one member of it.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic content and brief strong language

Cast: Rev. Rob Schenck, Lucia McBath, John Phillips, Troy Newman

Credits: Directed by Abigail Disney, Kathleen Hughes, written by Abigail Disney. A Fork Films release.

Running Time: 1:28