Movie Nation

It plays like a fable, but the bulk of this bizarre story of World War II, Nazi art thefts and those who helped with the stealing is true.

You can’t make this stuff up. Or in this case, you don’t need to.

Stuntman and producer Dan Friedkin, making his feature directing debut, renders this case of Han van Meergeren and Vermeer in broad strokes (sorry), struggling to turn what could have been a dark (or darkly comic) fable into a “ticking clock” thriller.

But the generally straightforward approach serves his cast well, and provides a rare tour de force for Guy Pearce, who is always good, especially when he has a role that requires a certain flamboyance.

Pearce is van Meegeren, an artist, art lover, art dealer and slippery swell laying low in his native Netherlands as if he’s expecting a shoe to drop.

Claes Bang (“The Square”) is a “Dutch Jew in a Canadian uniform,” a former tailor and jazz fan turned resistance fighter, now a Canadian officer trying to track down Nazi collaborators.

One of the key points of stress in this multi-handed script is that between those who “fled” Holland, to Britain, plotting a return to power after liberation, those who stayed behind and fought, as Joseph Piller (Bang) did, and those who “did what we had to” in order to survive, like Piller’s wife (Marie Bach Henson). She kept the company of German soldiers.

So did van Meegeren. Apparently. What Piller wants to find out is if this insanely valuable painting by “The Master of Delft,” Jan (Johannes) Vermeer van Delft, which wound up in the collection of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, was stolen, and from whom.

As Piller is Jewish, those noting his passion for the case figure the fact that the artwork was stolen “from Jews” further motivates him. As the people jumping to this conclusion are non-Jewish, and under suspicion for collaboration with the Anti-Semitic enemy, you can see why he’d get his back up.

But his prisoner is a mixture of unctuous charm and white-haired menace. And even though the State Police are hunting for him as well, he’s not cooperating.

“I find that in life, as in art, it’s always best not to spoil the surprise.”

We sense we’re being set up for a game of cat and mouse, and we’re not wrong. When van Meegeren wonders about his own “redemption,” and perhaps the captain’s secret need for it as well, we wonder if that’s a parallel the script will play up. Not really.

Piller interrogates van Meegeren and those who knew him, with an old Resistance friend (Roland Møller) there to provide muscle and menace. A cocked pistol is quite the incentive. Eventually, they have to hide their prisoner from government officials who’d love for van Meergeren to carry his secrets to his grave.

And that’s when he starts bargaining — an internment with good light, canvas and oils, access to “my assistant,” who is also his lover and model (Olivia Grant).

Through monologues and flashbacks, the painter and art lover tells his story. Meanwhile, events outside are conspiring to bring this all to a head and this “traitor” to trial.

Public firing squads are a common sight. So yes, the stakes are high. What will be van Meergeren’s defense?

The period detail and immersion in the art of the Dutch Masters creates the color palette of “The Last Vermeer,” and sets its tone.

And all of it — the strife in Piller’s marriage, the government intrigues, literally chasing van Meergeren at one point — is but the canvas for Pearce to paint his portrait of the duality of man, the shared guilt of those who seemed to thrive under Nazi Occupation, a guilt van Meergeren seems to not understand.

Pearce makes him ramrod-straight in posture and ever-the-epicurean about his tastes in art, and people and whisky. We can believe he dealt with the Nazis, and we can believe he figured he could outsmart them as we wonder if he’s outsmarting Piller, or even himself. Even with a firing squad at stake, Pearce’s van Meergeren is slow to panic, reluctant to lower himself to ask for help.

What an interesting pigeon-hole Bang has um, painted himself into. He’s now made three films set in the world of art –“The Square,” “The Burnt Orange Heresy” and “The Last Vermeer.” Something about him says “at home in the world of art and its pretenses.” Perhaps he should have a word with his agent.

The cat-and-mouse stuff, the “discoveries,” aren’t the hardest plot points to detect, nor are the under-developed distractions Piller has thrown in front of him.

But the courtroom finale, eating up much of the third act, is a corker. And Pearce holds our focus, still or animated, chewing up a scene or so underplaying it he’s still the center of attention.

Like the Great Master he is, he knows how to grab the eye and hold its focus, with or without a menacing mustache.

MPAA Rating: R for some language, violence and nudity

Cast: Claes Bang, Olivia Grant, Vicky Krieps, Marie Bach Henson, Roland Møller and Guy Pearce

Credits: Directed by Dan Friedkin, script by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, James McGee, based on the book by Jonathan Lopez. A Sony TriStar release.

running time: 1:53

A Ryan Murphy romp about theater “types” who show up to right a wrong in a right wing Indiana town that has a problem with same sex prom dates.

Tracey Ullman is here, you betcha. Coming to Netflix

Writer-director Justin Simien has more experience in satire (“Dear White People”) than horror, and a better handle on lighthearted lectures than laughs.

Which is to say, so what if this supernatural satire “Bad Hair” is more about the message of the monster than the monster itself? It works.

And that monster? African American women’s hair, that one bit of “Black Girl Magic” that requires…assistance. Simien serves up genuine torture porn about what women with naturally kinky hair, “as nature intended, go through to Be Like Beyonce’.

Anna Bludso (Zaria Kelly) learned this lesson in childhood, that “relaxer” accident administered by her step-sister. She wears the scars of it into adulthood as she (Elle Lorraine of “Insecure”) struggles to fit in at Culture, a Black MTV facing major changes in Music Television in 1989.

All Anna wanted to be was on-air talent. But it was the hunky receptionist (Jay Pharaoh), the guy she sleeps with on the sly, who got that gig.

But her tinted-glass ceiling may be about to shatter. The pre-“woke” Woke workplace that Black Pride Preacher Edna (Judith Scott) presided over has a new corporate boss Grant (James Van Der Beek) and a new EVP of programming, former-model and “influencer” before that was a thing, Zora (Vanessa Williams, perfection).

Out goes Edna, and Zora — as intimidating and probably conniving as she is — hears out Anna’s pitch for a show that sounds exactly like “Total Request Live,” before that was a thing. They’ll go all-in on “hip hop and this new jack s—.” This makeover could fulfill bossman Grant’s vision.

“If this succeeds, it could change popular culture!”

Anna, behind on her rent and more bubbly than sexy or confident on camera, has one thing holding her back — her hair.

“Sisters get fired for less than that every day,” Zora purrs. To be “one of MY girls,” she’s got to “flow.” More precisely, her hair does.

The “creamy crack” (hair relaxer) won’t cut it. She needs to go for broke (literally) and go all-in on this new thing — “the weave.” And no weaver but Virgie (Laverne Cox of “Orange is the New Black”) will do.

The scariest scene in this “horror comedy” is the (slightly) exaggerated torture of picking “her,” how Virgie describes the hair that will be the New Anna, and weaving it in.

“My sources are exclusive.”

And her methods? “Essential oils” and curved needles more commonly used for surgical stitches? Exquisitely painful.

Simien sets up Anna’s new path as a contrast to the foster family of African American folklore professors (Blair Underwood. Michelle Hurd) who raised her. She may see eerie similarities between her story and a folk horror tale about “The Moss-Haired Girl.” Anna may wonder about what Zora’s weave, and that of a pop star (Kelly Rowland) who has extended her Janet Jacksonish music video career with her weave, have cost them.

But she will not know the “full” story until she’s gotten hers.

There’s just a hint of the delicious bitchiness of this office culture that Simien captures, and perhaps could have brought in a female co-writer to fluff up. The women are all “sister to sister” until the urge to backbite overwhelms them.

Williams, reviving her “Ugly Betty” edge, plays a character who’s a comment on her persona and her screen career. Fair-skinned and “beautiful” by “European” standards, Zora doesn’t sound like any of the music-savvy African Americans who are now her minions.

Zora’s attempt to leap into an argument with an enraged Social Justice Warrior Princess may be the funniest line Williams ever said. And it’s only a single two-letter “word” that Ms. Elocution and Poise plays as if it’s her first-time ever saying it out loud.

“Yo yo yo.”

Sister please.

Simien’s film has a cluttered feel, and in trying to steer clear of archetypes, he robs us of the satisfaction of a clearly-defined villain mentor vs. the more high-minded one. Zora may take credit for ideas and covet the spotlight Anna craves for herself, but she’s doing what the righteous but imperiously snobby Edna never would — hear Anna out, give her a chance to rise.

The “hair” with a murderous mind of its own is more funny than scary.

“Bad Hair” and its follicles are on their firmest ground just poking at the prejudice, pressure and unnatural (but admittedly lovely) beauty that women feel compelled to pursue to get noticed, get ahead and get theirs. The supernatural element feels unnecessary, save for the finale.

Still, hair that promises to deliver super powers, but that comes with supernatural trade-offs? That’s a killer concept and a satire that almost writes itself.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, sex, profanity, smoking

Cast: Elle Lorraine, Laverne Cox, Jay Pharaoh, Yaani King Mondschein, Usher Raymond, Blair Underwood and Vanessa Williams

Credits: Written and directed by Justin Simien. A Hulu release.

Running time: 1:42

This Netflix drama pushes a lot of the right buttons, and parking a screen legend in it is very smart.

John Brown’s Kennedy Farm HQ outside of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. #moviesinspiretravel

It’s about 8 miles from the town, and a tiny place that Brown, played by Ethan Hawke in the wonderful “The Good Lord Bird,” packed himself and 21 other men, along with two Brown daughters, in prep for his assault on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.

Lindsey Morgan, Jonathan Howard and queen of low budget sci-fi Rhona Mitra are the stars, with James Cosmo, Alexander Siddig, Daniel Bernhardt, Cha-Lee Yoon.

This third “Skyline” pic streams Dec. 18.

There’s a set of the jaw, a mercenary narrowing of the eyes in Anya Taylor-Joy that hisses “relentless.” It’s reminiscent of Natalie Dormer’s ravenous gaze, although less sexual.

She can soften it a little, as she did in “Emma.” But it’s always there, in “Thoroughbreds” or “Peaky Blinders” and it’s what makes the limited series “The Queen’s Gambit” seem tailor-made (sorry) for her.

In this adaptation of the late Walter Tevis’s novel (his “The Hustler” and “The Man Who Fell to Earth” were also made into films), she’s a chess prodigy, an “intuitive” champion utterly myopic about the world she lives in and the life she’s eschewing to keep her eyes on the prize, and the board.

Family may fail her — her mad mathematician mother (Chloe Pirrie) may have even expected to end Beth’s life the day her childhood ended, when her mother died in a Kentucky car crash that Beth survived. And the couple that eventually adopts her (Marielle Heller and Patrick Kennedy) don’t support her passion, and can’t even stay together for her sake.

Her one friend childhood friend at the orphanage (Moses Ingram) might let her down. And the chess players she runs into, afoul of and tumbles into bed with will never be up to snuff.

Beth Harmon won’t let any of them stand in her way, and Taylor-Joy lets us see the unworldly, naive but heartless Beth calculate the costs-to-benefits transaction that every relationship in her life represents. She’s even relentless in her vices, the ones that either aid her rise, or point to its obvious pitfalls — booze, pills.

Scott Frank’s series takes us from young Beth (Isla Johnson) picking up the game from the custodian (Bill Camp) at Methuen Hall, and picking up a lifelong tranquilizer habit from a facility that in the ’50s and ’60s drugged the kids in its charge.

The older Beth remembers falling in love with “the board, all the world in just 64 squares.” Alone in the world, with chess “I feel safe. I can control it. I can dominate it.”

She isn’t self-aware enough to understand the instability that comes with the brain one has to have to conquer this game. Her mathematically-published mother should be at least a cautionary lesson for her — in literary (and dramatic) cliche terms. But no.

Her inexorable march into and through the man’s world of 1960s chess takes up much of “The Queen’s Gambit.” Win after win, men (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Harry Melling, others) taking her lightly because she’s learned the game without knowing about “ratings,” rankings and tournament etiquette and protocols.

Movies on the subject have covered covered the mind-crushing mania that this ancient and inscrutable game generates (again, cliched) — “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” “Pawn Sacrifice”). “Gambit” goes deeper into the chess, especially when Beth finds a foe worthy of her talent (Thomas Brodie-Sangster of the “Maze Runner” movies).

But that “relentless” march quality means the series telegraphs its chapters, even as it bogs down in the late ’60s, tourneys, “Russians,” crises of confidence and every predictable drink-Ripple-from-the-bottle pitfall along the way. That makes it drag, not always, but more than you’d like.

There’s just a little humor, much of it of the female empowerment variety. And creator-director )and writer of two episodes) Frank, a wonderful screenwriter (“Out of Sight,” “Logan,””The Lookout”) allows the odd perfectly-composed shot to call attention to itself.

Some of the co-stars (Camp) seem shortchanged, while Heller, an actress, writer and director (“Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”) and Brodie-Sangster at least get to make enriching impressions and contributions.

But this is Taylor-Joy’s quest and march, and we see Beth’s monomania mature her as an actress over seven episodes. She marches into the frame, lets us see the girl acquiring a poker-face and developing killer instinct and gamesmanship.

And she sashays out of the frame, dancing by herself (’60s pop) with regret never furrowing her brow, even in that rare moment when she figures out what “longing” feels like. First scene to last, she makes this a character with her nose to the ground as she sniffs out weakness and vulnerabilities, in all the men she faces off with, and in herself.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, sex, alcohol and drug abuse, smoking, profanity

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Camp, Marielle Heller, Moses Ingram, Thomas Brodie-Sangster

Credits: Created and directed by Scott Frank, based on a novel by Walter Tevis. A Netflix release.

Running time: Seven episodes @ 49-59 minutes each

Kathryn Winnick also stars in this thriller, which has hints of “cult” if not “OCcult” in it.

“Wander” streams on Dec. 4.

Here’s a no-budget Canadian thriller that comes oh-so-close to being the “Little Horror Engine that Could.”

“Halloween Party” almost gets by on just-enough character development, a workable plot — if they’d stick with it — and Classic Canadian Comic Banter.

It “almost” makes you forget how long before writer-director Jay Dahl (“Boyclops” and “There are Monsters” were his) makes us wait before even trying to scare us.

We have to forgive the generally blase means of killing off coeds and frat bros. We must shrug off that the killings are off camera.

And let’s not mention how it starts promisingly, picks up steam, and then sort of stumbles to a halt for a long stretch leading into the final act.

Coeds Grace (Amy Groening, yes related to Matt) and Zoe (Marietta Laan) are chatting away, looking at Zoe’s vacation photos, when a virus pops up on Zoe’s computer.

“Hello, Grace,” it says, in graphics anyone who sees it will say, “Hey, that looks like Nintendo!”

Before she can blurt out “How’d it know my name?” the “meme” has asked her to type in “Your greatest fear.” And she’d better do it in like 40 seconds. Or ELSE.

“Your greatest fear will come true!”

Grace beats the clock, but when the viral virus demands the same of Zoe, she’s slow on the uptake. An ’80s computer generated witch accompanies the words “Your worst fear is coming to get you!”

As Zoe’s fear was “pig people,” and every “greatest fear” in the movie has a back story, we have an idea of what’s coming.

Grace? As long as she types in “vagina spiders” quick enough, her doom can be postponed.

The cops (unseen) don’t buy this, so Grace does what heroines always do in horror movies. She visits Nerd Central. That’s where Spencer (T. Thomason), long-nicknamed “Special” as in “special needs,” begins their deconstruction of what they’re dealing with.

These early scenes of electronic sleuthing, investigating and reasoning out the supernatural thing they’re up against are the film’s best. That’s partly because of the snappy and snippy exchanges between them, and between the campus “bros” who tolerate but look down on “Special.”

“This where the roofies party’s at?” “Yo, broheem, looking SEXUAL.”

Their investigations take them to the library, where there are clues on film. NOT on a DVD, or even a VHS, either. Got to check out a projector and a screen as well.

“How did folks WATCH stuff in ‘The Old Days?'” “Seriously, people were just ANIMALS before Netflix.”

If this snark had continued all the way through “Halloween Party,” if the cute nursing student/nerd “relationship” had played around a lot more with the “Will they f—?” 1980s movie formula that Spencer tactlessly lays out of out-of-his-league Grace, “Halloween Party” could have been the horror sleeper of the season.

Even the unwieldy story and cheesy effects could have been assets, not liabilities.

As it is, this “Party” comes ever so close for ever so short a period of time, and then rims out.

MPAA Rating: unrated, gory horror violence, profanity

Cast: Amy Groening, T. Thomason, Marietta Laan, Shelley Thompson, Scott Bailey and Zach Faye.

Credits: Written and directed by Jay Dahl. A Red Hound release.

Running time: 1:35

This thriller produced an arresting trailer with an air of melancholy menace and a vivid sense of place.

“The Giant” streams VOD on Nov. 13.