Movie Nation

Dirty cops are misusing wiretaps and setting up people under surveillance. Dillon’s not one of them. Bruce is.

Sept. 2

“A Song for Us” is an inane bordering on insipid Canadian melodrama without the drama.

Its sole saving grace is the hippie nostalgia it wallows in, and the fact that I use “wallow” should tell you that’s praising with faint damnation.

Set in Toronto, writer-director Peter Hitchcock’s debut feature is a rosy, almost conflict-free remembrance of Toronto’s Yorkville neighborhood, the hippest, singer-songwriter-friendliest corner of that city in the ’60s. Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot got their start in the “Canadian Haight Ashbury.”

An elderly folk busker gets the attention of a filmmaker (Karen Scobie) making a documentary about homelessness in Toronto. It turns out, he’s somebody her 60somehing mother’s friend (Brian Scott Carleton) used to know. Which means the homeless man is someone her mother (Lisa Kovack) recognizes, too.

Visiting painter-mom’s time-capsule home on Ward Island reveals that “Tom” (Keith McTie) and Mom used to be an item. He may look “beaten and sad” now. But back in the day…

A flashback takes us back to the least edgy, most PG depiction of the swinging, war-protesting, drug-abusing, free-loving ’60s ever committed to film. Mom remembers the day she (Haley Midgette) arrived in Yorkville from London, “and not the one in Ontario,” a folkie with a dream.

Young Tom (Tyson Coady), a popular San Francisco expat dodging the American Vietnam War draft, was a rising star of “the scene.” And that song we heard him busking in the film’s opening credits, “A Song for Us,” might have been his ticket to the Big Time.

Because “Come with me and sing along, this is a song for us” is the sort of thing that sold back then, right?

“A Song for Us” is a movie of drifting conversations and narrative with no more forward motion than a soap bubble in a breeze. We’ve seen enough tough-minded Canadian thrillers and boundary-pushing Canadian comedies that we know the “They’re just too nice” stereotype is easy to send up. Here’s a movie that embraces it, and is all the poorer for it.

“Any chance you’re a vegetarian?” “I’d LIKE to be!”

Too many scenes are aimless, too much of the dialogue is just — that word again — inane and every one of the ’60s references, from drugs to “head shops” to “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” are just cliches.

The acting’s as banal as everything else — line readings that sound like “readings,” “American” accents full of “oot and aboot.”

The film’s opening dedication “For a tribe I knew…..” would ring false if I hadn’t looked up a photo of first-time filmmaker Peter Hitchcock. Gray hair? This looks, sounds and plays like a student film — a very young student’s film.

Rating: unrated, drug use and abuse

Cast: Lisa Kovack, Haley Midgette, Keith McKie, Tyson Coady, Karen Scobie and Brian Scott Carleton

Credits: Scripted and directed by Peter Hitchcock.

Running time: 1:31

Idris the Jinn. Or Genie. Tilda has…wishes.

This is the year’s most intriguing fantasy title. Hey George Miller, you rebooted “Mad Max.” The world’s your oyster! What is your auteur heart’s desire project?

“Make a Wish!”

Looks quite mad.

Close your eyes and listen to “Man with the Gun” and you can hear hints of “The Mercury Theatre on the Air.” The crisp, crackling dialogue, the brisk pace, it’s a film that has the aural qualities of an Orson Welles radio production.

I noticed that before I realized the director and co-writer was “THAT Richard Wilson,” aka “Dick Wilson,” longtime member of Welles’ rep company and the survivor of that group who helped oversee the editing and release of the documentary “It’s All True” from footage Welles shot making his unfinished South American project, a debacle that forever stained his Hollywood career.

This little seen Western, now on Tubi and some other platforms, caught my eye because of Robert Mitchum, Mr. Always Gives Fair Value, and the role he plays. In this outing, he’s a “town tamer,” a professional gunfighter/temporary lawman brought in to “tame” a town that’s gotten so violent and vice-ridden that only a temporary gunslinging dictator can set things right.

Especially when there’s a cruel and corrupt rich man with a lot of hired guns who has already set himself up as dictator, keeping the town and the local sheriff under his thumb.

It’s a longtime trope of Westerns. Remember “Support Your Local Sheriff?” This movie is what that James Garner comedy was sending up. There was even a Dana Andrews film titled “Town Tamer” released ten years later.

I couldn’t find any reference to this being an actual named profession in the Old West, where “bounty hunting” thrived. But it does sound suspiciously like the role the real-life Earps played — corrupt as they were — running gambling and law enforcement at the same time in assorted towns.

Mitchum’s Clint Tollinger rides in looking for a woman. Nelly (Jan Sterling) runs the local brothel, “dance hall girls” early Westerns on TV labeled them. Look for young Angie Dickinson as one of them. Clint has unfinished business with Nelly.

Clint’s ridden into town fresh on the heels of the chief goon (veteran heavy Leo Gordon) of the local cattle baron killing a dog that annoyed him by barking too much. Before the day is over, while Clint is tracking down the elusive Nelly, that thug and his Palace Saloon Boys (Claude Akins is one) have gotten into it with a local farmer (John Lupton).

In the sparsely-populated West, gunslingers and townsfolk often knew each other by face, name or reputation. Might the famous Clint Tollinger be available to tidy up this mess? The Doc (Florenz Ames) used to live in a past project of Tollinger’s professional interest.

“Mighty sick town,” Doc remembers. “Clint operated on it. Patient lost a lotta blood…but lived.”

Clint, famously all “dressed in gray” even though “black would fit his profession better,” has other concerns. And he’s got rules.

“I always try to make sure a town needs doing, and wants doing.”

It does. Considering what a chatterbox the old sheriff (Henry Hull of “Lifeboat”) is, Clint won’t have much help. This “peacemaker by profession” prefers to work alone.

The first things that jump right out in this picture are the tense, martial Alex North score, the clean, simple narrative and the startling realism of the art direction by Hilyard M. Brown. Silent film vet Lee Garmes photographed it, and the static set-ups give it a TV Western feel. But it’s what he captured that sets the film’s look apart from legions of run-of-the-mill Westerns.

The streets are narrow, not built for driving cattle through. There’s grass, not just sand. There are cross streets and there’s visual depth to the village — buildings behind other buildings, of various vintages and designs. The moment Mitchum rides in, we notice Sheridan City has a slope to it (The Samuel Goldwyn backlot). That’s rare enough — in Westerns — to make you notice.

And then there’s that radio-drama-snappy dialogue.

“Where’ya heading?” “Not HERE.”

The film’s themes are more liberal than the usual amoral shoot-em-ups of TV of the era, recycled and re-broadcast and worshipped as some sort of code-for-living by generations of gun nuts. I wonder if that’s why I’ve never seen it, and I was sure I’d seen every Western worth taking in. It serves up simple, rough justice without ever feeling simplistic, and stands out from the crowd and the more reactionary guy-with-the-fastest-gun-makes-the-law dogma of most Westerns.

Here, Clint’s first order of business is gun control. “No weapons worn in town.” When he oversteps his bounds and overstays his welcome — he promises to be “quick” with his work, in and out in days — the locals start to grouse about the dictator they’ve put in charge.

Mitchum is bluff and tough, settling into the screen icon image he’d been building for ten years. Not all the casting works, but veteran character actors like James Westerfield ground the film in genre “reality,” of a sort.

“Man with a Gun” — also called “The Trouble Shooter” and “The Deadly Peacemaker” — gets a lot of characters, a lot of story and plenty of action into its lean 84 minutes. All that crisp dialogue delivered at a sprint helps, too. Clint’s first “arrest” is two shots heard off camera, and the big set piece isn’t the “High Noon” finale, but a big fire that lets us see Clint’s realization that he’s crossing the line, upping the violence ante because he knows they’ll be coming for him with pitchforks sooner rather than later.

Film buffs know the telltale signs of any movie Orson Welles had anything to do with — the visual flourishes, depth of field and shadows that suggest he “helped” direct “The Third Man” and “Journey into Fear.” But those of us who know his radio work beyond “War of the Worlds” can hear his influence on other projects, such as this Richard Wilson Western, scripted and performed like a classic radio drama, packing all the back story, character and plot in as if he’s expecting to be interrupted by commercials for Lux Soap and Lucky Strikes.

Rating: “passed,” violence, suggestions of prostitution, alcohol

Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jan Sterling, Leo Gordon, Henry Hull, Karen Sharpe, John Lupton, Ted de Corsia, Emile Meyer, Angie Dickinson and Claude Akins.

Credits: Directed by Richard Wilson, scripted by N.B. Stone and Richard Wilson. A United Artists release on Tubi, Amazon, etc.

Running time: 1:24

A mother who leaves, who doesn’t give us a reason — not straight away, anyway. The “Diving Bell and the Butterfly” star directs Krieps and Arieh Worthalter in a screen adaptation of a play by Claudine Galéa, Sept. 9, in theaters. From Kino Lorber.

Could be something. Colson Baker (the star) hopes so, with Storm Reid, Drea Di Matteo and Travis Fimmel all playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon from now on.

A Sept. 2 getaway undertaken by cross-country bus.

An “Orphan” sequel? The movie about the diminutive Eastern European girl with a sad case of the psychopaths?

It’s a little late for that. The original came out in 2009, and Isabelle Fuhrman — who gets plenty of work without sequels — isn’t 14 any more. I mean, come on.

That’s the prevailing sentiment for the first half or more of “Orphan: First Kill,” which brings our Estonian murderess back to North America for more mayhem. It’s bloody, and bloody ridiculous, and playing with camera perspective to make Fuhrman hobbit-sized is kind of an eye-roller, as effects go.

But we know the estimable Julia Stiles is in this thing. And in our minds, we make a covenant with the great performers. Stiles, who classes up everything she touches, had to see something in this. Julia won’t let us down. In Julia we trust.

And damned if she doesn’t deliver, as this grim march through murder curdles from Grand Guignol to laugh-out-loud hilarious.

A movie with the most cynical motives and barely any justification for existing turns into something fun.

Screenwriter David Coggeshall and director Willian Brent Bell go to a helluva lot of trouble figuring out how to get the much older, even more-cunning “Esther” out of a snow-covered Estonian hospital for the criminally insane, onto a computer where she can swap identities with a missing girl, and into America.

They remind us of the dwarfism that was the Big Reveal in “Orphan,” that this “child” is actually an adult. Then after finessing that, they park her back “home” with a rich American family (Stiles, Rossif Sutherland and Matthew Finlan) whose daughter disappeared years before. “Esther” is back!

The child’s disappearance left her painter-father (Sutherland) bereft, and the detective (Hiro Kanagawa) they leaned up to track her down frustrated. But now that she’s back, Allen can pick up the brush for his black light luminescent paintings (Don’t tell Julian Schnabel about this!), champion fencer big brother Gunnar can go back to looking after her and Mom can revel in the light, purpose and even romance that this return heralds.

Or can she? Might the detective, or the family shrink or something or someone else trip up our little piano playing pickpocket? Has Esther gotten even better at covering her tracks?

The first two acts set up the challenges and deliver violence and manage to become a serious drag. The third act to “First Kill” finally manages a jaw-dropping moment or two. But mostly, it’s about over-the-top laughs, and Stiles and Fuhrman throw themselves at it with all the “I have profit participation” gusto they have in them.

No, it’s not subtle, not droll or particularly arty. It’s not even all that horrific, despite the grisly nature of the violence.

But it is something to see. And Julia Stiles, dear, you’ll have to forgive us for ever doubting you.

Rating:  R for bloody violence, language and brief sexual content

Cast: Isabelle Fuhrman, Julia Stiles, Rossif Sutherland, Matthew Finlan and Hiro Kanagawa.

Credits: Directed by William Brent Bell, scripted by David Coggeshall. A Paramount+ release.

Running time: 1:39

Oprah gets behind a documentary about one of the greatest actors of his generation, Sidney Poitier.

Reginald Hudlin directed it and appears to have talked to everybody we want to hear from.

A lot of famous faces singing his praises, a slice of the adorable rivalry/friendship with Harry Belafonte, a lot of Poitier himself talking about his life and career, and a lot of tears, just in the trailer for this Sept. 23 Apple TV release.

A rich kid faces his drug-dealing, drug-using, lie-to-everyone reckoning at a slow-jog in “The Runner,” a lurid, dazed and guilt-ridden thriller starring Edouard Philipponnat.

Director Michelle Danner’s latest builds to a solid finish at a lurid, extravagant party where the threat of doom hangs over the proceedings. But that follows a narrative that’s often adrift, weaving in so many flashbacks it’s sometimes tricky to figure out when the fictive “present” is.

Philipponnat, a Chalamet beauty who figured in “House of Gucci,” is Aiden, son of a well-off businesswoman (Elisabeth Röhm, of “American Hustle,” TV’s “Jane the Virgin”) who — when we meet her — has just called the cops on her only child. He’s blitzed and dealing, and he’s no stranger to Det. Wall (Cameron Douglas).

Ever-traveling Mom’s “scared straight” dreams are a delusion. Wall has enough on this kid to lock him away. The fact that he doesn’t, that three months later Aiden is back to his old tricks without so much as an ankle bracelet, is our clue.

Aiden is cutting class and deaf to the tough-love pleas of his track coach. He’s rolling in a G-Wagon and rolling in cash thanks to the connections of his running mate Blake (Nadji Jeter). There’s that One Big Deal they’d like to seal at a party they throw during another of Mom’s business trips.

But on this long day, as Aiden lurches between manic and stoned, sleeping with his working class girlfriend (Jessica Amlee) and absorbing the “Get us that juice, kid, we’re going to STATE” threats of the jocks, flashbacks tell us how this entitled kid got to the moment.

Philipponnat is so into character, playing a semi-plastered, mumbling teen, that his enunciation is subtitles-needed sloppy. Maybe it’s the callow, dislikable character, but he doesn’t register much beyond the $500 haircut pretty-boy level.

The stand-out performance here is delivered by Eric Balfour as the drug dealer they call Local Legend. His “meet” with the up-and-comer is a biting, touchy exchange full of contempt and class resentment and Balfour (TV’s “The Offer”) just crushes it.

Douglas makes a properly sinister, play-the-angles cop and if you close your eyes, you’d swear Michael Douglas’s son was “Drugstore Cowboys” era Matt Dillon.

But Danner, of “Hello Herman” and “Bad Impulse,” cooked up a sadly unsurprising story with screenwriter Jason Chase Tyrell and all the pretty people and pretty settings and flashbacks can’t finesse “The Runner” into something it’s not — tense and compelling.

Rating: R, violence, teen Drug and Alcohol abuse, profanity

Cast: Edouard Philipponnat, Elisabeth Röhm, Cameron Douglas, Nadji Jeter, Jessica Amlee and Eric Balfour

Credits: Directed by Michelle Danner, scripted by Jason Chase Tyrrell. A Saban Films release.

Running time: 1:44

Emily Watson stars in this one.

What more do we need to know? It’s A24. Always worth a look. Always.

Sept. 30.