When United 93 (Universal) came out, it was hard to see it as anything but a referendum on whether America was ready to watch 9/11 in movie form. That question still hasn't been entirely settled, but at least it's easier to appreciate the way Paul Greengrass' unflinching, documentary-style approach brings back the horrors of the day with shocking immediacy and without feeling exploitative. Instead of bad-taste entertainment, it feels like another product of our attempt the answer the simple, elusive question, "What happened?"…
The latest from producer Luc Besson, who's become a sort of Eurotrash Jerry Bruckheimer, District B13 (Magnolia) starts out like gangbusters with a breathtaking chase sequence through a cordoned-off Paris slum. It never quite manages to top that showstopper, but it's one of Besson's most diverting pieces of action fare, resembling the superior Thai chop-socky movie Ong-Bak, which Besson also produced…
Fans of The War Room would be wise to check out Our Brand Is Crisis (Koch Lorber), and not just because both films prominently feature charismatic political strategist James Carville. Rachel Boynton's documentary takes a revealing look at the machinery of electoral politics through the riveting story of American political consultants toiling for a well-fed, U.S.-friendly Bolivian ex-president looking to regain the office with a little help from the finest spin-meisters money can buy…
Shane Meadows' low-key revenge thriller Dead Man's Shoes (Magnolia) stars Paddy Considine as a soldier who returns home to get even with the low-level drug dealers who befriended, then tortured, his mentally handicapped brother. Considine's plan is initially prankish, but it turns bloody, as he and Meadows hold the small-timers of the English Midlands responsible for every painful childhood memory. It all makes for well-paced, well-observed boondocks melodrama, simultaneously slender and overheated…
Half documentary, half philosophical experience, and a bit half-assed on both counts, Rupert Murray's Unknown White Male (Wellspring) tells the fascinating story of Douglas Bruce, a 35-year-old photographer with total memory loss. Murray invites viewers to imagine the amnesia experience for themselves, and to question the relationship between identity, personality, and memory, but he doesn't suggest many answers to the big questions he's asking, and he overcompensates with busy montages and stock-footage inserts. Bruce is a compelling subject, but once he settles into his new life as himself, the film just vaguely peters out.