Movie Nation

Joe Mantegna, Jena Malone, Adam Arkin and Thomas Ian Nicholas are in the cast of the heist-gone-wrong thriller “10 Cent Pistol.”
But it stars two unknowns — JT Alexander and Damon Alexander.
Nothing wrong with that. Everybody deserves their shot at a big break. Nice of these “name” actors to pitch in on writer-director Michael C. Martin’s movie to make that happen.
But playing two mugs, thieves and gunslingers, the Alexanders do little more than look tough and take up space. They’re the least interesting characters in this convuluted attempt at a tricky tale of betrayal and mass murder.
Easton (Damon Alexander) is fresh out of the joint, after doing time thanks to Punchy (Mantegna) who wanted him to just “pull this job for him.” The end result was “a crime scene with five dead bodies (Russians).” But Punchy, at least, got Easton busted for something less. The payoff? Bearer bonds. But Punchy never paid up.
Jake (JT Alexander) has been living in a nice loft, making time with E’s girl (Malone). But when E wants to hit Punchy’s place and collect what’s owed, Jake is all in.
That crime is the framing device in Martin’s movie, though he jumps back to the original heist as well. We keep coming back to Easton having bullets gruesomely fished out of his back (by Arkin), and “How We Met” moments with Malone.
But that opening heist — with a rich son (Nicholas) trying to tip the cops who come to investigate the burglar alarm at Punchy’s place that he’s being held hostage while Jake and Easton ransack the joint — is supposed to hold the film together. And for all its twists and turns, it doesn’t.
The dialogue has its snappy, hardboiled moments.
“They’ve got cameras watching the cameras,” and “You’re not going to get the opportunity to get the opportunity to say something stupid.”
But Jake’s narration, about how you can either “finesse” your way out of a jam, or “Bogart your way through it,” is drab. As are the performances. Especially the leads.

And the shoot-outs are spaced so far apart as to make this 90 minute picture feel much longer.
That makes “10 Cent Pistol” (as in “hotter than a 10 cent pistol”) too tepid to bother with.

MPAA Rating: R for violence, language throughout, some sexual references and drug use

Cast: JT Alexander, Damon Alexander, Joe Mantegna, Jena Malone, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Adam Arkin
Credits: Written and directed by Michael C. Martin. An eOne release.

Running time: 1:31

Cobie Smulders reminds us that she’s more than an agent of “S.H.I.E.L.D” in “Unexpected,” playing a pregnant teacher who bonds with her star student, who also happens to be pregnant.
Neither Samantha Abbott (Smulders) nor Jasmine (Gail Bean) planned these babies. Sam teaches high school and dreams of working at Chicago’s Field Museum, but she and her live-in beau (Anders Holm) did something that has her heaving over the toilet, Googling “pregnancy symptoms” and shopping for early pregnancy tests.
Jasmime is a rising senior at Sam’s inner city Chicago school, the kid most likely to get out. Then she falls into the same trap as the mother who dumped her on her grandmother — teen pregnancy.
Teacher and student give each other someone to lean on during when the menfolk are either inflexible (Sam’s man, who hastily marries her) or juvenile and MIA (Jasmine’s guy).
Elizabeth McGovern gives a nice neediness to Sam’s mom, hurling herself into her daughter’s pregnancy. The script contrives to make Sam resent that and lash out.
The student-teacher dynamic is what pays dividends, here, as Jasmine starts to feel the humiliation of the cliche she’s living out. White people patronize her, assuming “poverty” and “she just doesn’t know any better.” When she does, but she’s made her choice.
And Sam is the object of stereotyping, as well, via Jasmime, who assumes a planned pregnancy from a woman who might have to postpone — briefly — her dreams, thanks to the disappointment of a pregnancy, who looks as if “You always on your way to prenatal yoga!”
Jasmine?
“My whole life is a disappointment!”
Mumblecore maven Kris Swanberg co-wrote and directed this, a film which could have used more sparks in the confrontations, more snap to the banter and more originality — start to finish.
Strip away the profanity — because that’s how a lot of women react to the news that they’re pregnant, and later the unpleasant symptoms of pregnancy — and “Unexpected” is just a sweet “Lifetime Original Movie.” That’s movie fan code for “female friendly drama with most of the rough edges rubbed off.”
But Smulders and Bean make a believable pair, mismatched women who connect in a mentor-pupil way, then evolve into a deeper understanding thanks to unexpected pregnancies.

MPAA Rating: R for language

Cast: Cobie Smulders, Gail Bean, Anders Holm, Elizabeth McGovern,
Credits: Directed by Kris Swanberg, script by Megan Mercier and Kris Swanberg. A Film Arcade release.

He had to look good on a horse so he could make Westerns, be convincing in uniform for his combat films, be sexy in romances and romantic comedies and look like he can take a punch for his boxing picture.
Jake Gyllenhaal is ripped and ready for the body blows in “Southpaw,” a gritty but draggy ripoff of “The Champ” scripted by “Sons of Anarchy” creator Kurt Sutter and bathed in blood and sweat by Antoine “Training Day” Fuqua.
Gyllenhaal is Billy Hope, a mumbling stammering Hell’s Kitchen orphan who has fought his way to the top of his weight division. His fellow ophran/child of the streets Mo (Rachel McAdams) has been there, every step of the way, the wife always in his corner.
“Don’t get hit too much!”
Billy’s main weapons are his rage and his ability to take a punch. He trash talks his foes, even as his face is awash in blood.
But that temper is what sets off an out-of-ring melee with a challenger (Miguel Gomez), and that leads to a shooting and Mo is killed. It’s a wrenching death scene that both Gyllenhaal and McAdams play the hell out of. Enjoy it. The cops have so little interest in this very public murder that they basically drop the matter, as does the movie.
Billy’s life and career go into a death spiral, despite the fact that he’s rich and he has an adorable daughter (Oona Lawrence) who needs him don’t matter. His manager (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) is no help. His “boys” are pushed aside. One disastrous fight later, and Billy loses the kid, the house, the Bentley and Ferrari, everything.
He turns to blind-in-one-eye trainer Tic (Forest Whitaker) to pull him out of it.
The story arc is entirely too familiar to sustain the two-hours-plus length, the violence, gore and language are the only elements that lift it from the weepy melodrama that “Southpaw” wants to be into “Raging Bull” territory. Fuqua gives us a gloves-eye-view of the fighting sequences, which are more believable than your standard issue “Rocky,” but still strain credulity.
Since we’re already straining to see Gyllenhaal as an inarticulate dead ender and the dearly departed McAdams as anything but a prep school product, that’s a distraction the film doesn’t need.

But Gyllenhaal, covered in blood and tattoos (“Fear No Man” on his back, his daughter’s name and birthday in Roman numerals on his chest) puts the work in and makes us believe, as he always does.
Young Miss Lawrence tugs at the heartstrings, Whitaker gives fair, gruff value and Naomie Harris makes the most of a thankless social worker role that’s frankly beneath her.
The dialogue — that which we can make out — doesn’t reinvent the movies. Gyllenhaal mumbles, Whitaker slurs and 50 Cent, dolled up as a dapper fight promoter, does the same (he’s always been mumbly) and you realize that maybe this one would be better on home video — with the subtitling on.

MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, and some violence
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Rachel McAdams, Oona Lawrence, 50 Cent
Credits: Directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by Kurt Sutter. A Weinstein Co. release.
Running time: 2:03

LILA AND EVE – 2015 FILM STILL – Pictured: Viola Davis as Lila and Jennifer Lopez as Eve – Photo Credit: Bob Mahoney / Samuel Goldwyn Film

The great Viola Davis struggles to bring the gravitas of grief to “Lila & Eve,” a thriller about a mother in search of the people who killed her teen son in a random drive-by.
But when grief gives way to rage and revenge, this promising character piece turns into a real head-slapper. That transformation coincides with the arrival of Jennifer Lopez, playing a fellow mother who has lost her child to violence.
Lila & Eve meet at the Mothers of Young Angels support group. Eve lost a little girl. Lila, her beloved, college-bound son, Stephon (Aml Ameen). Lila confesses to Eve that, as deep in mourning as she is, she wants to know who killed her boy. Why aren’t the cops putting some effort into the case?
“We think about it all the time,” Eva says. “But nobody else does.”
With just a sliver of information from the detective assigned the case (Shea Whigham of “Boardwalk Empire”), Lila, egged on by Eve, sets out to get some answers. She doesn’t know why her boy had a .38 revolver in his backpack, or why he was on that notorious street corner. Maybe she doesn’t want to know. But Eve, given custody of the pistol, isn’t shy about waving it around to the first link in the chain that they run across. She shoots the guy, too. And there, “Lila & Eve” goes right off the rails.
As these two intrepid mothers shoot gangsters and steal their phones (leading them up the food chain), remorse never really sets in. Lila makes mention of the fact that they’re just making more grieving moms, but Eve isn’t hearing it.
Late night stakeouts, a happy, selfie-snapping trip out night clubbing (That Lopez lady can dance!), all lead them down the road to their destiny.
The script plays like a movie that was financed based on spoiler alerts, which either aren’t that surprising or feel like contrived cheats, in this case.
Director Charles Stone III, whose peak moment may have been the cute black marching band comedy “Drumline,” works the many flashbacks with Lila remembering her talks with her son in with a deft touch. But the action beats are jarring and the violence seemingly without consequence.
And Davis has her performance chopped down to something lacking the subtlety she’s known for. This character loses her believability at about the time she loses her humanity. We can root for her all we want, but that doesn’t mean we believe the turn of events that transforms a nurturing Atlanta mom into a cold blooded huntress.

MPAA Rating: R for violence and language

Cast: Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez, Shea Whigham, Aml Ameen, Andre Royo
Credits: Directed by Charles Stone III, script by Pat Gilfillan. A Samuel Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:33

Here’s a Korean thriller ready made for a Hollywood remake.
A detective is summoned away from his mother’s funeral by a panicked call from his office. Internal Affairs is onto the squad-wide bribery and they’re all in the deep stink.
His sister is nagging him to be “a good son” and get to the funeral. She’s using his little girl in the nagging.
His wife has a “We need to talk” moment. That’s never good.
And then, distracted by a cute dog, he hits somebody with his car — kills him. He has to stuff the body into the trunk and dispose of it, running police sobriety checkpoints, accident investigators, his own squad’s interest in the missing dead man, along with finding a way to explain the car damage, his tardiness, all of it.
Kim Seong-hoon’s “A Hard Day” has its share of tense moments — Will Detective Go (Lee Sun-kyun) trip up here, or there? — spread out over 110 somewhat leisurely minutes.
The grabber moments — smuggling the body into a funeral home, using a cop’s wiles to foil surveillance cameras — are spaced out more than one would like. The script is tighter than the direction and editing. 
But the set-pieces dazzle (think Korean war toys) and the performances by the cops have a nice cynicism about them. If Hollywood isn’t in a scrum for the remake rights to this one, somebody’s missing the boat.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence

Cast: Lee Sun-kyun Lee, Jeong Man-shik, Jo Jin-woong
Credits: Directed by Seong-hoon Kim, script by Seong-hoon Kim,
Hae-jun Lee . A Kino Lorber release.

Running time: 1:51

Amy Schumer, America’s new R-rated sweetheart, wrote and stars in what should be her break-out film, “Trainwreck,” playing a sweeter and funnier version of the comic persona she’s created.
She plays a woman who has taken Dad’s “Monogamy isn’t realistic” speech (delivered when she was about 5) to heart. Amy Townsend has grown up to live the love life of a player, a hit it and quit it who drinks too much, smokes too much weed, wakes up in a lot of strange beds and is long past the day when she thought anything of a “walk of shame.”
She’s doing it the way guys (in the movies, at least) dream of doing it — sex without commitment, purely for sport and pleasure. Her muscled boyfriend (wrestler and comic marvel John Cena) doesn’t know they’re in an open relationship until after he’s humiliated himself attempting the “dirty talk” she so covets during sex.
“You can’t spell VICTORY without ‘T.R.Y.’!”
Amy writes for “S’Nuff” magazine, a lad mag given to cover stories like “You’re not gay, she’s boring,” and the impact of garlic on the taste of semen. Tilda Swinton plays her self-absorbed Brit-boss, the one who sends her out to profile the surgeon to the sports stars, Dr. Aaron Connors. Bill Hader plays this guy like a deer caught in Schumer’s omnivorous headlights — scared, shocked, overwhelmed, smitten.
Brie Larson is the sister who’s opted for the conventional life — husband, “Big Bang” nerdy stepson, a real disappointment to Amy.
And Colin Quinn is the Dad, who like the real Amy Schumer’s father, suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and is in assisted living. But not without a fight.
Schumer’s not-model-thin-s0-what swagger shimmers through every scene, even the ones where she’s straining too hard to top the last one liner. She hates sports, and notes that her doctor/interview subject treats “a lot of black people.” Is she racist?
“I like black people! I PREFER black people!”
She’s perfect as the bull in the china shop at her sister’s baby shower, the reporter who never hesitates to cross the line and bed the people she’s interviewing, the woman who has never let herself get emotionally entangled with a guy. Best of all, she’s not some caricature of a “train wreck” or “semi-hot mess.” She’s made this woman real, flawed, funny and carnal.
Director Judd Apatow still lets every single scene run too long, past its payoff, past the point where it’s funny. The opening reporters’ “pitch meeting” stumbles on and on, a finale involving cheerleading routines exhausts its possibilities. The minutes add up and this unconventionally conventional 90 minute rom-com stretches to two hours plus.
But Colin Quinn, who has never been funny in a movie before, scores laughs.
Tilda Swinton, tanned and coarse and ready for action, kills.
Cena is hilarious, Hitchcock veteran Norman Lloyd steals scenes with funny lines in the assisted living facility, and comic Dave Attell zings as the witty homeless guy living on Amy’s stoop.
And Lebron James, playing himself, practically steals the movie. Playing it straight, “concerned” and split-the-check cheap around his go-to surgeon, you can see Hader fight back the laughs as he stares down King James in some moments.
Schumer, writing and performing a character close to the one she’s been presenting to the public, may never be this funny again, but funny she is. If she’s lucky, she’ll graduate from that edgy but clumsy and coarse TV show, the Comedy Central one propped up by ads for phone-sex lines. R-rated or not, she’s America’s sweetheart –2015 edition.

MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use

Cast: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Colin Quinn, John Cena, Tilda Swinton
Credits: Directed by Judd Apatow, script by Amy Schumer. A Universal release.

Running time: 2:05

Paul Rudd brings his Everyman/Funnyman humor and humanity to the Marvel Universe in “Ant-Man,” a formulaic comic-book thriller enlivened, a bit, by his engaging lead performance.
It’s yet another “origin myth” within Stan Lee’s empire, and much of its nearly two hours is overwhelmed with the tedious touchstones of such movies — how “Ant-Man” came to be “Ant-Man.” But a lively, silly opening and a deft and daft finale rescue it from all its Avengers/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. back-engineering.
Rudd is Scott Lang, whom we meet the day he gets out of prison. A likable lunk with an advanced degree but a long “cat burglar” rap sheet, he falls in with his old cell-mate (Michael Pena, hilarious). And that’s how he comes to meet Professor Pym, inventor of the “Pym Particle” and a fellow who had a serious falling out with Tony Stark’s dad, back in the day. He’s played by Michael Douglas.
Pym’s particle reduces the distance between atoms, maintaining density as it does. The upshot? A guy can shrink to ant-size, retaining his relative strength and throw-weight. That will be handy if Pym wants to tear his company from the clutches of his evil protege, Dr. Cross, given some lip-smacking gravitas by Corey Stoll (“House of Cards,” “Glass Chin”).
Scott’s solution to Pym’s problem?
“I think we should call The Avengers!”
Evangeline Lilly is Pym’s daughter, Hope, all bangs and generic “adult in the room” lines.
“Do you think this is a joke?”
During the many scenes where Scott has to train with an army of carpenter ants, bullet ants, “crazy” ants and fire ants, not so much. But entrusting this to director Peyton Reed, known only for comedies (“The Break-Up”) occasionally pays dividends. Pena’s scenes where he relates, in convoluted flashbacks, how he learned about this potential heist or made that connection, are narrated by the actors in those flashbacks in Pena’s manic Hispanic-accent. But Rudd’s wry way with a line is put to little use, despite the half-dozen or so writers brought in to joke up the script.
This is mostly special effects — a digitally shrunken guy in the Ant-Man suit running and playing with ants — and Marvel Universe housekeeping, fitting this story in with the larger one of next generation Avengers.
Whatever its cheerful B-movie charms, “Ant-Man” never feels like it can play with the big boys. We’re drifting into the comic book B-list, and nearing that long-anticipated moment of comic book movie overkill. Rudd or no Rudd, without the goofball finale, “Ant-Man” would be the runt of Marvel’s ever-growing litter.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence

Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michael Pena, Judy Greer, T.I.
Credits: Directed by Peyton Reed, script by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, Paul Rudd, script by . A Marvel Studios/Walt Disney release. release.

Running time: 1:57