Movie Nation

“Synchronic” is a time-travel thriller with high stakes and genuine pathos. And all of that is conveyed in a gripping performance by Anthony Mackie, who takes this too-rare leading man role to its emotional limits.

The set-up is screwy and simple, the setting riveting and the key ingredients are not necessarily what the picture is about, but pivotal to its power.

Mackie and Jamie Dornan co-star as paramedic pals working their way through a New Orleans over-dose epidemic.

Dennis (Dornan) is a family man, with an infant and a teen daughter as compensation for a marriage (Katie Aselton) he’s constantly complaining about.

Steve? He’s a loner and a Lothario, waking up in a lot of different beds. Tara (Asleton) explains Steve’s “situation” to the baby she brings to a group picnic.

“Look babe,” she coos, “Uncle Steve’s sitting ALL the way over here because he slept with all Mommy’s friends before they married those men over THERE.”

Work nights are nightmarish — junkies and corpses and little wrappers of this “designer drug,” Synchronic lying near many of the victims.

Steve finds out what the drug does long about the time he finds out he’s got a health issue, and just as they stumble across an OD at a party where Dennis’s daughter Brianna (Ally Ioannides) was last seen.

That pill — and this is the “silly” part — sends you on a trip, not in space but in time. Pop a pill and you might wind up on a plantation, in swampland before it was filled in to make modern New Orleans, in the Ice Age and contending with a conquistador, voodoo cult, Confederate soldier or hunter-gatherer.

Co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead make great gritty use of the ruined parts of Louisiana, and the time travel bits — often at night — are atmospheric and spooky.

A hallucinatory and wordless prologue sets up the “trippy” nature of the film, and the principal effect — bodies perforated and dissolving from place to place. The shift to the “real” world of EMTs killing time between morbid calls by hitting golf balls into whatever vacant lot they’re parked next to is abrupt means we’ll go a long while before having any idea what that introduction was about.

The story’s stakes come from the ticking clock of Steve’s illness, the limited supply of pills and the chance that “the wild cards of fate” have sent Brianna somewhere in time, with only “armchair physicist (Hah!)” Steve to rescue her.

Mackie makes the quibbles with the “logic” of it all fade into the background with a performance begins brusque and bluff, and softens as he starts to experience the precious brevity of life and the wonders — and limitations — of this dangerous drug.

“Synchronic” scores a few points for its novel choice of “explanation” for its form of time travel, and a lot more for casting the right time traveler to say “Man, f— ‘Back to the Future!’ The past was HELL.”

MPAA Rating: R for drug content and language throughout, and for some violent/bloody images

Cast: Anthony Mackie, Jamie Dornan, Katie Aselton and Ally Ioannides

Credits: Directed by Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, script by Justin Benson. A Well Go Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:43

“Freaky Friday” meets a serial killer. Sounds like a job for Vince Vaughn.

New York set, Canadian made, “Wendigo” is coming for them.

Abe Applebaum is a 32 year-old has-been, a small-city Ontario burn-out who drinks too much and expects too little. That’s what life has taught him.

But twenty years ago, Abe was someBODY, a Willowbrook kid who gained local and national film as a sleuth, “The Kid Detective,” solving petty thefts, vandalism and the like. Then his 14-year-old “receptionist” Grace (Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato) disappeared, and little Abe, local celebrity, was at a loss — helpless to help her or figure out her fate.

Abe, played with a depressed and utterly deflated exhaustion by Adam Brody (“Ready or Not,” “Promising Young Woman”), knocks back another drink and stares into the abyss of who he used to think he was and who the world sees him as now. “The world” includes his parents (Wendy Crewson and Jonathan Whittaker).

“We’re not bailing you out again.”

The ice cream shop owner who gifted him with “free cones for life” doesn’t hide his resentment any time Abe drops in for a freebie. The folks who still call on his “services” are missing cats, trying to figure out if their dad is gay or if the classmate who claimed he spent his summer in training camp with The Mets is lying.

And his Dad wants to know if he’s even bothered to raise his rate.

“Do you still charge a QUARTER?”

“The Kid Detective” is a soft-spoken, deceptively wry Canadian variation of the time-honored trope of private eye fiction — a gumshoe in need of redemption, sobriety and that one case that came give him back his long-MIA mojo.

A high school girl (Sophie Nélisse) has that case.

“Somebody murdered my boyfriend.”

And even though Abe’s ready to remind anybody who doubts him “I’ve closed over 200 cases,” even though we’ve seen evidence of his logical, studied powers of observation, deduction and drawing conclusions, we and he know he’s way out of his league.

Evan Morgan’s script takes its time getting on its feet, saunters through the middle acts and quietly sets up and delivers a finale that starts surprising and turns shocking and then more shocking.

Caroline (Nélisse) is the audience’s surrogate, the naive kid Abe impresses with his smart questions, his cunning (unlatching windows of houses he might want to “visit” again) and his seeming grasp of the “psychological integers” of every case.

He can’t call on the cops, his Goth receptionist (Sarah Sutherland, Kiefer’s daughter) is useless and for all his acumen about knowing WHAT to do, he’s a big clumsy actually DOING it.

Through it all, Brody wears the stubble of the “Out of f—s to give,” the battered sportscoat of private eyes since the beginning of time and the resignation of a man stuck being who he was as a boy, and starting to realize it. It’s a performance of sly wit, annoyance and alcoholic depression.

With its lesser-known cast, “The Kid Detective” was always going to get lost in the cinematic shuffle, with or without a pandemic closing most theaters. But Morgan and his new muse have concocted a whodunit that could give Hercule Poirot a run for his money in a contest for the year’s best mystery.

And let’s not forget this is Morgan’s debut feature. If Rian Johnson (“Knives Out”) sees this, he’s going to be looking over his shoulder.

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

Cast: Adam Brody, Sophie Nélisse, Wendy Crewson and Jonathan Whittaker

Credits: Written and directed by Evan Morgan. A Sony/Stage 6 release.

Running time: 1:37

Fans of Liam Neeson’s late career revenge thrillers know to wait for that payoff line, which may vary in verbiage and accent, but never in meaning. Here’s the version in “Honest Thief,” delivered in a “not hiding me accent any longer” brogue.

“Agent Nivens,” he growls, “Aahm comin’ fer Yoouuuu.”

And there it is, that moment we’ve anticipated after which we can relax, now that the Big Man from Eire has got THAT out of the way.

Pretty much every other moment in “Honest Thief” is expected, too, alas. That’s another characteristic in Neeson’s “man of violence” movie dotage. The only twists to this — little character quirks and the like — are just dopey and off-topic, the stuff to make an action fan wonder “What’s up with that?”

Neeson plays Tom Carter, a “retired bank robber” who has let the love of a good woman (Kate Walsh of “Grey’s Anatomy” and the Netflix series “Emily in Paris) make him want to “come clean” and pay his debt to society.

But the FBI agents he’s negotiating giving himself up to let their heads be turned by the big haul of cash involved. Well, some of them. Robert Patrick is the honest agent who turns out to be the odd man out.

So Tom’s given up his cover and his cash and is on the lam anew in Boston, wanted for murdering a Federal agent. “Clear my name” is his objective. Protect “Annie” (Walsh) is another.

Staying alive while Agent Nivens (Jai Courtney, a fine villain) and Agent Hall (Anthony Ramos) hunt him, and their unsuspecting boss (Jefferey Donovan of “Burn Notice” and “Fargo”) supervises the search will be trickiest of all.

Neeson always gives fair value in such roles, but the problem with a film like “Honest Thief” is you’ve got to forget the “Taken” movies and every variation of those he’s made in the past 15 years for any of this to feel fresh. He’s always got “particular skills.”

The script is workmanlike, with the odd ridiculous moment on its way to the inevitable.

A stand-out failing of “Honest Thief,” which has visceral shoot-outs and a novel car chase, is the supporting cast. Walsh’s reactions to most everything this “good man” in her life does defies belief. We look at her face and listen to her voice for some hint this extraordinary and extraordinarily violent turn of events will rattle her.

Nah. She’s read all the way to the end of the script. Never let’s us see her alarmed.

Donovan is emasculated by giving his character a Shih Tzu he dotes on and takes to the office, etc. He’s good in the action scene he’s hurled into, and befuddled looking the rest of the time. Like Walsh, we know he’s better than this.

As for Neeson, who squeezes in the rare Euro or indie comedy or drama to remind us the talent and that’s still there, he’s fast approaching the point where we don’t know he’s better than this. Sooner or later, he’s going to give us what Walsh and Donovan do here — the appearance of an actor showing up for a check and not even pretending otherwise. ‘

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for strong violence, crude references and brief strong language

Cast: Liam Neeson, Kate Walsh, Jai Courtney, Jeffrey Donovan, Anthony Ramos and Robert Patrick.

Credits: Directed by Mark Williams, script by Steve Allrich, Mark Williams. An Open Road release.

Running time: 1:39

With Regal shuttered and AMC almost out of cash, big chunks of the country are about to be without moviegoing even as an option. Not that most people consider it safe, even without a big uptick in COVID cases.

Some cities and states have theaters closed by mandate, some will have to re-close. Having written versions of “The Last Drive In” at five different newspapers over the years, I can vouch for the fact that barring the new “drive in boom,” date night will have few to zero options for cheap, safe entertainment.

So let’s mask up while we still can. You never know when that next chance will present itself.

This is an old Carmike that sold to Epic that AMC picked up as a cheap first run (AMC Classic) in the vacation village of New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

In a later era Uncle Frank could have been a Republican senator, I tell you what.

Anyone worried that watching how their favorite K-Pop confection is prepared for world music domination will spoil “Blackpink” for them can rest easy. “BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky” doesn’t dive deep into the latest South Korean YG Entertainment-assembled pop creation.

It’s a superficial skim across the surface of these young women, groomed for stardom from their early teens, about as deep as their multi-lingual singles — “Ice Cream,” “Whistle” and that thumb-through-the-thesaurus, “Ddu-Du, Ddu-Du.”

Caroline Suh’s plainly officially-sanctioned “up close and personal” profile of the four 20ish singers may get a half-admission that this one regrets “memories” that might have been created by living with her family and going to high school, that another one might have worked up the temerity to ask permission to work with a different producer for a possible solo project.

Their producer, Teddy Park, can talk about them having drilled in “the techniques and tools that they need for the next ten years,” because that’s their shelf life — tops.

But while each individual comes off as distinct...ish, none of us are that interesting or that distinct at that age. And having lived in a bubble, trained at YG’s “academy,” living in a dorm for 4-6 years before being assembled and unleashed on Korea, Asia and then the world, living and traveling and performing together, never allowed to smoke, drink or “get a tattoo,” you can’t help but get the impression that “Light Up the Sky” isn’t remotely as informative or revealing as a movie about them after all this is over — maybe one made four years from now.

That’s no criticism of Jisoo, “Unnie,” the “older sister” of the group, of the blonde, guitar and keyboard-playing Rose’, of Lisa from Thailand or Jennie, the Korean New Zealander. They’ve been drilled to stand out only in that girl group/boy-band way. And in this case, they’re not even distinct in that regard, no “Sporty Spice” or “the rebel” or what have you.

Little hints are all we get of what their lives have really been like — boarding school Down Under, then selected for stardom, 14 hour workdays rehearsing and recording and trying out all during their teens.

That moment when a very young Miley Cyrus complained that her backup dancers almost dropped her right off the stage, captured in the “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” film, and having her parents shrug it off was more revealing than anything here.

Not having personal lives, and being younger than Katy Perry, there are no weepie meltdowns over the pressure or a lost romance as we saw in “Katy Perry: Part of Me.” Blackpink is as covered-up as rapper and former 1TYM (K-pop) member turned producer Teddy Park, always seen in a mask, here.

The film is built around their North American breakthrough at Coachella, although much of it was shot afterwards, sort of a “Here’s who they are now that you’ve been introduced to the music and choreography of their act” quickie.

“Light Up the Sky” is limited to the four women and Teddy Park as interview subjects, with a little interaction — a pilates instructor “friend” here, a makeup artist or outside producer there.

They go through “fittings,” where their wardrobe has been narrowed down (limiting choices) for them to “select” and “be creative.”

Their precision on stage doesn’t hide lip-synching any more than their revealing outfits and perfect twerks, bumps and grinds obscure how utterly sexless it all is. It’s like that infamous moment in Rolling Stone Magazine history, when sexless pop idol David Cassidy revealed a little pubic hair on the cover and ended his pop idol reign.

“Sexy but sexless” is what sells to this audience. Always has.

Hearing from their fans, how great it is that “they’re best friends” and all makes you long for the day when those fans figure out “It’s not like they have a choice.”

Speaking as a guy outside of their target demo, I’m always as interested in how the sausage is made. Over the years, I’ve covered Britney Spears as she transitioned from Disney kid to pop tart, interviewed Maurice Starr (NKOTB etc) and his more criminal copycat Lou Pearlman, covered NSync in court as they sought freedom from their indentured servitude contracts.

So what’s left out of “Light Up the Sky” is a LOT more interesting than anything we’re shown here. It’d have to be. Because even by the standards of “officially approved” pop phenom bios of the Bieber/Miley variety, this is weak tea.

MPAA Rating: TV-14, a bit of skin, popping and locking and shimmy shimmy shakes, etc.

Cast: Jennie Kim, Jisoo Kim, Lalisa Manoban, Roseanne “Rose'” Park, Teddy Park

Credits: Directed by Caroline Suh. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:19

A tech nerd/boy genius gets a taste for his Italian grandpa’s geezer game — Bocce ball.

A real “Atsa my game, atsa my boy” family comedy.

It’s not that the ending of “Painter” is a drab, unemotional and unexciting anti-climax. It’s that too much of what comes before this art world thriller’s finale is flat, rote and conventional to the point of predictable.

Cory Wexler Grant’s debut feature earns good intentions points for casting character actress Betsy Randle as its anti-heroic heroine, an arts world “type” — the “patron” who gets in entirely too deep.

The “Boy Meets World” and “Girl Meets World” veteran narrates in a kind of “Sunset Boulevard/Bright Lights, Big City” remove, a charmless all-knowing cynic observing the lives she’s entwined, the “world” (art) she sees as false, the manipulation she figures is her due.

But as wealthy Angelino Joanne sinks her hooks into mild-mannered mediocrity Aldis Brown (Eric Ladin), the patronizing Joanne lets us know that making this painter her “creation” and a star won’t be enough, succeed or fail.

She is a reliable narrator in that she shows her cards in voice over, an unreliable one because we can see this colorless Midwesterner isn’t worthy of championing.

After all, she herself has told us that “genius,” long-reserved for that “once in a generation” talent,” has “lost all of its power.” Can she, as a collector, using it to describe Aldis make it generally accepted as true? Can she be trusted to recognize “that convergence of talent and timing” that makes a star?

And that brings up more questions. As we see the breathless “gallery show opening” types utter their “the color, the DEPTH” inanities, we wonder if we’re being set up for a satire of the art world’s fickle fakery, the poseurs passed off as “genius” because “I SAID so?” Or is something less surprising and more sinister in play?

“Painter” begins with a “30 under 30” show where Aldis might have been lost in the mix, another lowball sale, another chance to make his mark lost. Joanne, however, browbeats the gallery owner (Susan Anton) into selling her his painting at four times its asking price.

She takes an interest, narrates her notion that he will be her “creation.” But his friends are warning him. “She’s your Sam Wagstaff.” She’s a collector, patron and champion with something “else” in mind.

Aldis, being a cornfed Nebraskan, doesn’t know who they’re talking about. He lets her buy his work and gets talked into moving his garage-rental studio into her mansion.

“You need somebody to believe in your, push you.”

She can do that. And when he’s not looking, she’s confronting his sometime girlfriend (Cinthya Carmona), warning her away, that Aldis doesn’t need “frivolous diversions like you.” Joanne listens to his complaints about a much more successful rival (Casey Deidrick) a little too intently.

And as her intended results start to pay off with attention and a one-man show, she throws her weight around.

Randle may put across privilege and authority as she purrs through the narration, but she never gets across the menace the role needs.

The script gives Ladin few opportunities to expand on his character’s general under-reaction to what should seem like an obvious threat or infuriating annoyance. The picture and her performance rob us of that.

The time-lapse sequences of a painter at work add authority to the proceedings. But as the art world this is sort of sending up recedes into the background and Grant tries to throw us off the scent by being less predictable, interest fades.

Narrowing the focus to Joanne, her mania and her “secrets” makes it more boring.

There’s promise here. But that higher end of expectations would have been for this to be a solid genre thriller, not a dawdling, dull drip-painting of a tale.

“Painter” deadens the climax so badly that you almost welcome the anti-climax that follows.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, sex, alcohol abuse, profanity

Cast: Betsy Randle, Eric Ladin, Casey Deidrick, Cinthya Carmona, Omri Rose and Susan Anton.

Credits: Written and directed by Cory Wexler Grant. An 1844 release.

Running time: 1:40