Movie Nation

Cillian Murphy gets his Big Deal Big Screen star vehicle with this haunted turn, with Emily Blunt and Matt Damon and Branagh others in support in Christopher Nolan’s second historic epic about a history-shifting event.

July 21. I can hardly wait.

It’s undeniably iconic. Mention the title and an image comes to any film buff’s mind, burnished and burned onto the retina these past 28 years.

Genre-defining, operatic in scope and soap operatic in its domesticity, Michael Mann’s “Heat” is a saga-length heist picture. It is both intimate and sweeping, a John Woo/Howard Hawks “men with a code” epic, with William Friedkin grit, and maybe a pinch of Peckinpah for those who like their gun violence realistic.

“Heat” seems to have grown in stature and reputation since its 1995 release. Like John Ford’s “The Searchers,” at some point that repute took on a life of its own, almost superceding the actual film, a movie that can be relished on all sorts of levels.

Start with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro near their peaks, LAPD Lt. “HOO Hah” squared off with the soft-spoken Neil, a greedy goateed sociopath with a plan. Throw in a gruff turn by fellow Oscar winner Jon Voight and stellar support by a dozen other “names,” including future Oscar winners Wes Studi and Natalie Portman, and featuring character acting stalwarts like Danny Trejo, Jeremy Piven, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Haysbert, Mykelti Williamson and Ted Levine and you’ve got an embarrasment of character-acting riches.

There’s a loud and just-real-enough and get over-the-top LA street shootout that starkly predicted the machine-gunning of America, a cat-and-mouse plot with two cats/no mice, two loners recognizing the “I do what I do best… you do what you do best” fatalism in each other in a tale of two rival “gangs,” often framed in “West Side Story” Jets vs. Sharks compositions.

It’s a movie of “meets” — in diners, an abandoned drive-in, dockside, a string of houses and beach bungalows that could fill an issue of Architectural Digest, most every location coming with a stunning LA view.

And that dialogue — Mann channeling Mamet in flinty, florid flourishes.

“A guy told me one time, ‘Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat…'”

“He knew the risks, he didn’t have to be there. It rains… you get wet.”

“For me, the action IS the ‘juice!'”

“Ain’t ‘hard time’ that’s ever been invented that I can’t handle.”

For a film fan, especially “guys who love movies for guys,” “Heat” is practically comfort food, excessive running time be damned. There’s just so much to relish, a Tarantino trilogy of cool characters, chewy dialogue and “cool moments,” all more grounded in reality than your average QT exercise in excess.

It’s so good you wish Mann had been a more prolific director, that he hadn’t spent so much of his energy on “Miami Vice” on the small screen, and then the big one. His “Collateral” was impressive, “The Insider” and “Ali” assured his place in the pantheon. And he’s making a sequel to “Heat.”

But here’s the thing. “Heat” isn’t even Michael Mann’s best picture. It’s the gloriously excessive indulgence he allowed himself after his brisk, bracing masterpiece, “The Last of the Mohicans.”

I mean, just the cast here has a Coppola/Wellesian “EVERYbody eats” scale. Here’s William Fitchner as a corrupt tycoon running afoul of DeNiro’s “crew,” Ashley Judd tearing the roof off her married-to-a-crook (played by Val Kilmer) turn in just a few scenes, Diane Venora going toe-to-toe with Pacino, Tone Loc playing the snitch’s snitch, Hank Azaria smacking a small part out of the park.

Is that Martin Ferrero, fresh off a BIG break in “Jurassic Park,” playing a sales clerk at a building supply store in a single scene? Bud Cort as a crooked diner-owner? Almost everybody has a moment or three to show what they’re made of.

It’s almost too much because it is too much. The movie becomes unwieldy thanks to all that excess star power.

There’s a whole serial killer secondary plot that’s introduced and abandoned. And “Heat” has one of those “Raiders of the Lost Ark” lapses in logic that unravels the whole affair in the middle of the second act, something Mann doubles down on when he has Pacino’s bellowing, eye-bugging cop sit down for a friendly, respectful, legend-to-legend “chat” with DeNiro’s pitiless murderer.

“You know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular fellas.”

They talk about their dreams and their lonely lives. It’s a star moment and it comes so far AFTER we’ve seen goateed goon Neil OK the slaughter of the armed truck guards in the film’s opening heist that we almost forget how absurd it is.

I wouldn’t cut a second of it, but every time I see this sequence I need a little lie-down, just to recover from the exertion of rolling my eyes into the back of my head. It’s a grandiose flourish more at home in “Miami Vice.”

So no, not all this ballyhoo that’s piled up around “Heat” is justified. It’s a “To Live and Die in LA” to Friedkin’s “French Connection,” a stunning genre piece that isn’t as singular as its creator’s true masterworks.

Mann recognizes it as a critical and box office highlight of his storied career. It’s good and stands up to repeat viewing thanks to the players and the Big Moments. But even Mann knows it’s not some “singular” achievement in crime thrillers. Otherwise, he wouldn’t risk its reputation by making a sequel.

Rating:  R for violence and language

Cast: Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, Diane Venora, Tom Sizemore, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, Danny Trejo, Natalie Portman, Dennis Haysbert, William Fichtner, Hank Azararia, Ted Levine, Jeremy Piven, Kevin Gage and Jon Voight.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Michael Mann. A Warner Brothers release on Amazon, Netflix, etc.

Running time: 2:50

“Employee of the Month” is a dark Belgian workplace comedy in the tradition of “Nine to Five” and “Horrible Bosses.”

Yes, the title’s been used to death, even in French — “L’employée du mois.” But this crisp and ever-co-conveniently murderous farce demonstrates that revenge can be served hot or cold, and as messy as is necessary, just so long as you have the proper cleaning products at hand to tidy up afterwards.

Inès has been with EcoCleanPro so long she’s on her seventh pet goldfish named Jean-Pierre, each succeeding fish kept in the tank in her office. She practically runs the place, which is as unjust as the misnomer of calling the foyer where she takes calls and solves all problems an “office.”

Inès, played by Jasmina Douieb, used to have a real office. But somebody brought in above her took that. She started as a secretary and has the title “paralegal,” and does much more than that. She’s gone 17 years without a raise, as the patronizing men who run the place, and even the custodian, do quite well for themselves.

She is ignored, dismissed, pranked and has every menial job dumped on her, even by the custodian. Sure, she’s noticed it and borne it all with an even temper and tidy (she’s always cleaning) efficiency.

But the presence of a new college intern, Melody (Laeticia Mampaka), daughter of the former cleaning lady there, kind of throws the injustice of it all into sharp relief.

She can’t expect her smarmy, lazy boss (Peter Van den Begin) to do right by her, as she’s cheapened herself — in his eyes — for too long. The honcho from corporate may be a woman (Laurence Bibot), but she’s just as venal, callous and greedy as the men.

If we know our downtrodden working woman/man tropes, we just know this tyranny will not stand. But…but…but, it was an ACCIDENT. I SWEAR.

Now this fastidious, cleaning-obsessed “employee of the month EVERY month (in French with English subtitles)” has a body and blood stains to remove and a scheme to hatch with her incredulous, faintly contemptuous and yet culpable intern.

Inès, who lives her life by the Latin motto, “Mens sana in corpore sano,” has to put all she knows about EcoCleanPro’s product line to work as her office devolves into a body count.

Director and co-writer Véronique Jadin is covering familiar ground — injustices and humiliations pile up, rough JUSTICE is comically served. So she doesn’t waste any time getting around to it. This vengeance comedy practically skips by. Sure, she leans on plot conveniances and contrivances to facilitate that, but that’s of little consequence.

Douieb makes Inès a loyal company woman to the core, even as bodies and complications pile up, infuriating Melody even as she’s mentoring her.

“Even in times of crisis,” she teaches, picking up another call in mid-body-disposal, “remember, the CUSTOMER always comes first.”

Jadin and co-writer Nina Vanspranghe go Neanderthal in their depictions of the rank sexism of this workplace, the dated “men get to go to lunch and drink, Inès must eat at her desk” abuses, which cross over into sexual harassment.

The caricatures are almost cartoonishly broad and there’s little else that’s subtle happening here.

But Douieb, Mampaka, Begin and Philippe Résimont — as the smug, late-to-the-scene sexist cop who takes over the case and brings his patronism with him — make murder comic and help this “Employee” get a dirty job done, and tidy up afterwards.

Rating: unrated, violence, vulgarisms

Cast: Jasmina Douieb, Laetitia Mampaka, Peter Van den Begin, Alex Vizorek, Laurence Bibot and Ingrid Heiderscheidt

Credits: Directed by Véronique Jadin, scripted by Véronique Jadin and Nina Vanspranghe. A Film Movement release.

Running time: 1:17

“The Breaker Upperers” is a rude and rowdy Kiwi comedy about two friends who run a service that helps people get out of hard-to-end relationships.

Written, directed by and starring by Madeleine Sami and Jackie Van Beek and a crew that have the deadpan drollery and imprimatur of Taiki Waititi — who produced — and Jemaine Clements –who’s in it — these “Upperers” are pretty much guaranteed to amuse, in that “Failure to Launch” way, scheming to trick lovers into doing things at least one member of the couple isn’t down with. At all.

Maybe you’re bored. Maybe you’re too kind to end things the old fashioned way. Maybe you’re a bloody coward who can’t face confrontation or its consequences.

Never fear, Jen (Van Beek) and Mel (Sami) are here to role play, do the dirty work, take charge and take your money as they lie, bully or do whatever it takes to get the message across and the break-up finalized.

They are, the bossy and 40ish Jen assures one and all, “simply guiding two souls towards inevitability.” No sense wasting months or years making a break when these two can come to He Who Must Be Jilted’s door and deliver a singing (C&W), stinging telegram, ensuring that you’re done-baby-done.

Disguised as cops to tell Anna (Celia Pacquola) that her lover’s gone missing after a swimming accident seems a little extreme. But sure, whatever it takes to help “people escape dysfunctional relationships” is what they’ll do.

Only Jen, bitter over a breakup from her early 20s, is the one who is really into it. Mel, bisexual, younger and still into the idea of falling in love, may not have her heart wholly committed to what they do.

Anna’s case is the first place this comes to light. A dopey teen rugby player and food deliverer named Jordan (James Rolleston) is another test.

When Jen’s ex Joe moves back, married with a wife and three kids, and 30something Mel feels the urge to erase boundaries with first one client, whom she befriends, and another, who comes on strong enough to give her the tinglies, trouble comes to Olde Auckland and “the past” will come back to bite them both on the bum.

The banter, as you might expect, crackles with cuteness.

“Who’s this?” quizzes Mel, nicknamed “Melon,” who starts warbling a singing imitation.

“Prince? Kermit?”

“Nooo, that’s Celine DION!”

“That sounds like a sea lion being strangled!“

“Yeah, that’s what she sounds like.”

There’s coke-snorting over at Jen’s Mum’s house — well, they hope it’s cocaine — and the “cop” disguises blow up on them when a real cop, and a lesbian to boot, thinks they’ve shown up as her birthday “strippers” present. And the duo must cope with a lot of Maori anti-“white girl” rage as they get to know Jordan’s angry, assertive not-quite-ex (Ana Scotney, fierce and hilarious) and her Maori posse who will not take being dumped without violence.

The fact that Mel’s Maori isn’t the help you’d expect.

Can this business survive? Can Mel and Jen make things work, as a team? Or, you know, “bi-curious?” Just how much fakery can you get away with on a tiny island nation with its compact, laid-back populace?

“See you around!”

“Noooooo…”

“I will…see you around. It’s New Zealand!”

If you’ve liked “What We Do In the Shadows,” “Eagle vs. Shark” and anything with “Wilderpeople” in the title, you’re on the same wavelength as these “Breaker Upperers,” even if it’s hard to believe this lot gave us more Hobbit movies and America’s Cup defeats than we’d care to remember.

Rating: unrated, rude and a little raunchy

Cast: Madeleine Sami, Jackie Van Beek, James Rolleston, Celia Pacquola and Ana Scotney

Credits: Scripted and directed by Madeleine Sami and Jackie Van Beek. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:22

When one refers to the sequel “The Book Club: The Next Chapter” as “creaky but charming,” one must hasten to add that one is referring to the groaner laughs, gear-grinding situations and dated plot, and not the engaging ladies of a certain age who star in it.

One must.

Oscar winners Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen and Diane Keaton and Emmy winning legend Candace Bergen deserve our respect, and deserve better than this winded farce that takes our LA bookclubbers through COVID lockdown and over to Italy for a last hurrah, a bachelorette party and a bit of almost-amusing mischief in Rome, Venice and Tuscany.

The ladies who read have been maintaining their club via Zoom all the way through COVID, and just as they’re polishing off “The Alchemist,” New York transplant Vivian (Fonda) lets them know that at long last she’s ready to that walk down the aisle with her hunky beau Arthur (Don Johnson).

“In another 50 years, I might not find him as attractive as I do now!”

Diane (Keaton) is still with Mitchell (Andy Garcia), and fretting that “I’m too OLD to be somebody’s girlfriend!” Carol (Steenburgen) had to give up her restaurant, thanks to COVID. And her husband Bruce (Craig T. Nelson) has just had a nasty health scare.

Semi-retired judge Sharon (Bergen) is still alone, still sarcastic and still a stick in the mud.

But even though not all of them are on board, the idea of “one last fling,” reviving plans for a long-postponed group trip, sends them off to sunny Italy to celebrate the end of isolation and the end to Vivian’s lifelong single status.

Blunders pile up. They run afoul of Italian law enforcement (Giancarlo Giannini) and into new flames (Hugh Quarshie) and old ones (Vincent Riota). Sightseeing, a motorboat makeout session in Venice (nudge nudge wink wink), jail, a fabulous meal or two and a few double entendres ensue. “Hilarity” does not.

The jokes are of the “Everything is sexier in Italy,” variety, affording plenty of chances for Bergen to trot out her sitcom timing. “I know I am.”

Our core quartet are a well-preserved and still charming lot, with each giving a glimpse of their comic specialties. But like that spring fling, “80 for Brady,” the material here just isn’t up to the legends being paid to perform it.

Rating: PG-13, profanity, “suggestive material.”

Cast: Jane Fonda, Candace Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Diane Keaton, Andy Garcia, Hugh Quarshie, Craig T. Nelson, Vincent Riota, Giancarlo Giannini and Don Johnson.

Credits: Directec by Bill Holderman, scripted by Bill Holderman and Erin Sims. A Focus Features release.

Running time: 1:47

If you’re casting a movie about a business tycoon who basically launched a car company in a fit of pique, you could do worse than parking veteran screen heavy Frank Grillo in the title role.

Grillo can be menacing. Grillo can do slow burns. Grillo can fly off the handle, when the need arises.

And there might be a movie in the life of Ferruccio Lamboughini, the mechanic turned tractor builder who — insulted by the imperious Enzo Ferrari — bullheadedly set out to make “the most beautiful car in the world, and the fastest,” using a Spanish bull as his badge and the names of bulls or breeds for the cars’ model names.

But “Lambourghini: The Man Behind the Legend” doesn’t make that case.

It’s a truncated, somewhat sanitized bio pic of the “Tucker: A Man and his Dream” and “Ford v. Ferrari” school. Humorless and unexciting on every level, about the best you can say about it are you get to see a few cool cars.

Young Ferruccio (Romano Reggiani) returns to Cento, Italy, after World War II with his mechanic/driver pal Matteo (Matteo Leoni) and big plans.

He will marry the woman (Hannah van der Westhuysen) who waited for him and break the monopoly on tractor manufacturing in Italy, building a smaller, cheaper machine to cash in on the post-war “boom.” He and Matteo will modify an old car and win a big race to start the tractor concern with the prize money.

That doesn’t happen, and the script immediately sets the tone for the “biography” we’re to be served up. Events are conflated, chunks of history erased, details large and small bent and twisted and made to fit, much like the first car Lambourghini hastily pieced together for the Turin (not Geneva, as the film suggests) car show in the early ’60s.

The story is framed inside of an imaginary drag race between older Ferruccio (Grillo) and his nemesis, Old Enzo Ferrari (Gabriel Byrne) which Lambourghini imagines, sitting at his desk with toy cars. Kind of corny, but OK.

We’re dealing with a bit of balderdash, perhaps because the guy just wasn’t interesting enough to merit an American-made bio-pic featuring a trio of Hollywood stars. Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino plays the long-suffering, cheated-on second wife. She weeps a lot.

Maybe an Italian production that gets more into his childhood, his transformation from son of a grape-growing farm family into a mechanic for Mussolini’s air force who comes home from the war with big ideas and maybe a chip on his shoulder would have come off.

What we get instead is a fairly corny, utterly-conventional story of a proud, stubborn and womanizing business owner who succeeded with tractors, HVAC manufacturing and a luxury car marque, which is still around today, but owned by VW.

“You don’t believe in me,” Ferruccio complains at more than one point, at more than one age. “Life is short,” he says more than once, so why not build “the best cars in the world?”

He will develop a hand-built sports touring car “as strong as Hercules, as beautiful as Sophia (Loren).” He will do this because Ferraris are notoriously unreliable and he’s constantly burning through clutches on the ones he buys from Enzo’s motorworks.

But Italian cars in general and bespoke high-end Italian cars in particular are as famous for their looks as well as their fragility and stupidly expensive and laughably frequent repairs. Lambourghini did nothing to dispel that.

Casting the colorful Grillo (rent “Wheelman” or “Little Dixie” or even “Ida Red” to see him at his best) is probably the best thing that ever happened to the late Signor Lambourghini. But if you’ll recall, they didn’t put a lot of effort into depicting Enzo Ferrari in “Ford v. Ferrari,” and he was one of the villains of the piece. And by all accounts, he was much more of a character than his striving, bullheaded nemesis.

If Grillo can’t make the guy interesting to watch, and writer-director Bobby Moresco (he shared the screenwriting Oscar for “Crash”) can’t fudge Ferruccio’s life story into something more involving than this, I dare say that some suit at Lionsgate sat in a screening room at some point and wondered aloud, “Well, what was the point of THAT?”

Rating:  R for some language including a sexual reference

Cast: Frank Grillo, Mira Sorvino, Romano Reggiani, Patrick Brennan and Gabriel Byrne.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Bobby Moresco. A Lionsgate release on Tubi, Amazon, etc.

Running time: 1:37

The age-old proviso about Bollywood films is that if the music and the choreography is good enough, you’ll excuse the slack storytelling of the inconsequential story.

“Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar” puts that to the test with dazzling choreography, fun music, sexy leads and posh settings complete with an even more posh interlude in Barcelona, Spain.

But we are so far ahead of this story that impatience to “Just get ON with it” overhwhelms this Ranbir Kapoor/Shraddha Kapoor (no relation) rom-com.

Dashing, dancing singing lead Ranbir Kapoor (“Sanju”) is Rohan, also called “Mickey” and once jokingly referred to as “Jitendra” (“One who has overwhelmed the senses”), the head of a service that — for a steep price — will break up your relationship for you.

A rich boy who must hit the gym a LOT ( not that we ever see it), he and his pal-since-childhood Manu (Anubhav Singh Bassi) will anonymously (business transacted via voice-disguising phone app) assemble a team that might include a fake ex-boyfriend to provoke a jealous rage, or a fake fortune teller taking “You can do better” instructions by radio. They will pound whatever message is necessary home (“You Deserve Better” digital street signs) to trick the unknowing partner-to-be-dismissed to cause the break-up and not realize she/he was manipulated.

Their company’s not rolling in cash, but Rohan and Manu have ethics. A married guy wants out?

“You have a CHILD,” Rohan snaps. “Be a MAN (in Hindi with subtitles)” Manu barks.

But Manu’s slow-marching to the altar with the adoring but smothering Kinchi (Monica Chaudhary). Can their business, their “art” of the break-up, save him?

Maybe. But not if motor-mouthed fashion plate Mickey gets distracted by “a goddess” who just happens to be Kinchi’s bestie. Tinni (Shraddha Kapoor) is — as advertised — a stunner. She throws the fellow she flirtatiously dismisses as an old money “spoiled brat” for a loop.

“You’re so gorgeous, I’m ashamed I am not a poet,” he gushes.

A whirlwind courtship ensues, Manu’s “Kinchi” problem is ignored and Rohan’s big, over-bearing family overwhelms the budding relationship with Tinni, with his eager participation.

Bringing the mother, grandmother, sister and niece along to a movie? Not a smart play, old chap.

As we’ve recognized the plot as borrowed from “The Breaker Upperers” and assorted Matthew McConaughey-and-or-Kate-Hudson rom-coms about trying to con someone into or out of a relationship, we know exactly where this is going.

So why does it take two hours and forty minutes to get there?

Yes, it’s a culture clash thing. Indian films have been long, for a variety of reasons, since the beginning. But one clue that this Luv Ranjan film provides is the ways the story is strung-out, contributing to the “dawdling” feeling.

It’s not the five or six production numbers, not really. Not even when one of them is set up by a character noting “The music will start…now. Next come the dancers…:”

This film seems engineered for an audience that is distracted, half-paying attention or headed out to the concession stand or restroom — a lot. The “overbearing family” gag is just one plot point among many that is introduced, underlined, beaten again and then beaten to death.

There’s little that’s novel about any of this, but even the simplest “twists” are handled and rehandled as if we’re not catching on.

What works are those sexy, energetic and fun song-and-dance scenes, choreographed by Bosco Martis and Caesar Gonsalves.

The leads click and set off just enough sparks, as co-equals, to “work” as a couple. And director and co-writer Luv Ranjan and Ranbir Kapoor turn his character into a Kevin Hart-paced motormouth, a fast-talker who can bowl over anybody with verbiage.

His courtship pitch to Tinni? He is “talented, handsome, good looking, rich, fit, virile, polite, loveable, humble, respectful, romantic and adorable,” even if he does say so himself.

Yes, fast is funny, but predictable is predictable, and this rom-com stumbles badly as it lurches towards the inevitable — she’s hired him to bust them up, he’s slow figuring this out.

When the title “Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar” translates as “You’re a Liar, I am Cunning,” you need to be more cunning at hiding where you’re going. Otherwise, we start rooting for the breakup to happen out of sheer impatience.

Rating: unrated, mild profanity

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Monica Chaudhary and Anubhav Singh Bassi

Credits: Directed by Luv Ranjan, scripted by Rahul Mody and Luv Ranjan. A  Yash Raj Films/Netflix release.

Running time: 2:39

My first experience of the phenomenon instantly-labeled “Crackberry” was near its Canadian source, at the Toronto Film Festival shortly after the turn of the Millenium. You couldn’t watch a movie there without scanning a sea of little green screens all but rendering the big screen irrelevent.

Kind of felt like the End of Civilization as We Know It.

“Blackberry” is a crisp, crackling account — lightly-fictionalized — of that Canadian phenomenon that changed the world just as surely as Scots-born Canadian Alexander Graham Bell had changed it over a century before.

I used the word “guy” as a qualifier there for a reason, because this is prettty much a “guys” movie, capturing a nerdy male tech world at its most sexist, something the film has to jokingly acknowledge even if that isn’t exactly addressed. You can read the vanity, ego, machismo and nationalist pride that set the stage for Research in Motion’s rise and rapid fall as a study in male myopia, a monoculture that caught mononucleosis and pretty much died off because of it, it if you want to. Fair is fair.

But “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” veteran Glenn Howerton, playing the Big Business Bully who comes in, screams and breaks phones of every description as he all but takes over a Nerd Utopia — video-gaming slackers who had company Movie Nights built around “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or “They Live” showings — and lets them play in the big leagues.

“Blackberry” tells the story of the company, the phone and the guys who made it and broke it in three acts.

Ballsy Balsillie was sure he could put a stop to that, even if he couldn’t wholly change this Waterloo, Ontario company’s culture.

At the Toronto Film Festival?

Johnson, his cast and his co-writer, loosely adapting a book about the rise and fall of Research in Motion, also tell the story through three distinct character arcs. One player in the saga starts out a villain, becomes a hero, and winds up back at villain. Another is an idealistic hero who turns towards the dark side. A third is just as idealistic, but childish, and maybe needs to grow up.

“Scanners” and “Starship Troopers” veteran Ironside plays a whip-cracking tyrant with another tech company whom Jim, recognizing a fellow shouter, head-hunts to whip their brilliant, loyal “family” workforce into global marketplace fighting trim.

Johnson, playing the designated goofball (headband, unruly hair), co-writing the amusing script, which sees Doug groping for ways to pitch their Big Idea about using the “network” that’s already out there — “It’s like The Force! Didya see ‘Star Wars?'” — keeps the tone light, even as he sets us up for a story that’s nothing less than momentous.

Baruchel, playing a Big Thinker whose hair went white in his 20s, makes a great, sober counter-balance to shrieking, impulsive Doug, who pleads for them to blow off this brute (Howerton’s Balsillie) who storms in to take over.

Parroting Balsillie’s observation of how clients and vendors they’re dealing with are looting their company without the courtesy of wearing an eyepatch or a pegleg, Mike gets it.

Scene after scene has just such confrontations, with flinty and just-right exchanges setting the direction of the company and the arc of the narrative.

“Are you familiar with the saying, ‘Perfection is the enemy of ‘good enough?‘”

From beginning to middle to the end, Johnson serves up the conflicts, the characters, the stakes and the human-failings inevitability of it all with broad strokes and punchy, cutting lines. And his players wear their archetypes with skill, allowing for the occasional grand flourish.

Rating: R, profanity and lots of it

Cast: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Matt Johnson, Martin Donovan, Cary Elwes, Saul Rubinek and Michael Ironside.

Credits: Directed by Matt Johnson, scripted by Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller, based on the book by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. An IFC release.

Running time: 1:58

I’ve been reading Deadline.com’s reporting all week that has been shocked SHOCKED at steadily dropping expectations for the HUGE opening weekend for “Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3.”

The summer’s debut blockbuster was sporting $135-150 million prognostications. Early. And then people started seeing it. By “people” I mean “critics.”

Granted, there isn’t really a reviewing consensus on this threequel. Some praised it to the moon, but a lot of people sitting in the dark taking notes mentioned the fact that it’s a bummer. Not much fun. Not deep, either, although an anti-animal-testing message is an attempt at making this meaningless fun adventure “about” something.

Could the fanboyouisie sense “not all that” from the trailers, or the reviews? Thursday night previews cleared the $17 million mark. Not bad. But exactly the same take — pretty much — as “Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania.” And that’s widely acknowledged as an underperformer, opening weekend on through the run, and a bit of a bummer to boot.

Friday’s take added to “Guardians'” Thursday and we’re looking at a good-not-epic $110 million opening weekend.

There’ll be no parking in the garage with the motor running over that. And remember the standard set by “Super Mario Bros.” Here’s the year’s biggest hit, and it is crap with half a billion bucks in the bank. Most critics panned it or were at best lukeworm for it, and it’s made a mint.

“Guardians” is doing great overseas, but maybe a sunnier send-off would have made Marvel happy and not looked like James Gunn leaving a not-quite-poison-pill behind as he leaves to give DC comic book adaptations a lift.

I’ll be updating these figures as more data pours in Sat., but right now, that’s where “Guardians” stands. Is the audience for these franchises reaching its saturation point?

“Super Mario Bros.” will rake in another $18 million and change.

“Evil Dead Rise” will collect another $5+. “Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret” will add a paultry $3 million or so.

“John Wick: Chapter 4” will add another $2 and change, and finish its run short of $200 million.

Sony rolled out a romance an unpreviewed unheralded romance, “Love Again,” as counter-programming, and it’ll clear $2 and finish in the top five, not bad counter-programming.

The results from Box Office Pro

Another tale of “When the aliens come knocking,” this one with a zombie/horror bent.

June 6, Uncork’d uncorks this B-movie.