Roger Ebert Movie Review - 02/26/10, 09:53

Roger Ebert Movie Review

Weekend Box Office: February 19-21, 2010

Shutter Island tops the box office with $41.1 million

Daily Box Office: Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Shutter Island tops Wednesday's box office with $2.6 million

"The Ghost Writer" (PG-13, 124 minutes). In Roman Polanski's thriller, a man without a past rattles around in the life of a man with too much of one. Ewan McGregor plays a ghost writer hired by a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan), whose previous ghost has mysterious drowned. In a rain-swept house on Martha's Vineyard, McGregor meets the PM's wife (Olivia Williams) and his assistant/mistress (Kim Cattrall), as an international controversy swirls. A splendidly acted and crated immersive story. Four stars

Cop Out / *1/2 (R)

"Cop Out" (R, 110 minutes). An outstandingly bad cop movie, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as partners who get suspended (of course) and then try to redeem themselves by overthrowing a drug operation while searching for the valuable baseball card Willis wants to sell to pay for his daughter's wedding. Morgan plays an unreasonable amount of time dressed as a cell phone, considering there is nothing to prevent him from taking it off. Kevin Smith, who directed, has had many, many better days. One and a half stars

The Crazies / **1/2 (R)

"The Crazies" (R, 101 minutes). People in friendly Ogden Marsh, Iowa, start lurching around and killing tier love donnas, and it's up to the sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and his doctor wife (Radha Mitchell) to figure out why--and survive. Well enough made and acted, but zombies for me have worn out their interest. They lurch at you, you kill them, and maybe they're dead. Two and a half stars

District 13: Ultimatum / *** (R)

"District 13: Ultimatum" (R, 100 minutes). A preposterous but well-made French action thriller, centering on the newly popular martial art of parkour, which means "the art of flight." There's a plot to blow up a ghetto outside Paris and profitably rebuild it by the "Harriburton Corporation," and two hero cops race to stop this, which involves leaps from tall buildings, sliding down wires, climbing walls, breaking into prisons, and so on. The co-star is David Belle, well known in parkour circles because he named the art. The stunts and effects are sensational, and edited so you can actually see actors completing entire movements. Three stars.

North Face / *** (No MPAA rating)

"North Face" (Unrated, 126 minutes). Riveting story of two teams trying to climb the unconquered north face of the Eiger. Their climb and difficulties are shown in heart-stopping detail and realism. The film is weakened, however, by unnecessary subplots involving romance and Nazism. Three stars

Shutter Island / ***1/2 (R)

"Shutter Island" (R, 135 minutes). Leonardo Di Caprio and Mark Ruffalo are U.S. Marshals called to a forbidding island in Boston bay, the home of an old Civil War fort now used as a prison for the criminally insane. A child murderer has escaped her cell. Martin Scorsese relentlessly blends music, visuals, special effects and all of film noir tradition into an elegant horror film as fragmented as a nightmare. If you're blind-sided by the ending, ask yourself: How should it have ended? How could it have? Three and a half stars

Ajami / *** (No MPAA rating)

"Ajami" (Unrated, 120 minutes). On the mean streets of Jaffa, interconnect vendettas lead to a chain or murder. Complicating them is a system of loyalties to religions, ethnic groups, families and criminal competitors. The first murder was perhaps deserved, the second took place in error, and then others follow in a sort of domino effect. The point perhaps is that this story is the Middle East in miniature, and that hatreds move beyond obscure beginnings and take on an energy of their own. Co-written and directed by an Israeli and a Palestinian. A 2010 Oscar nominee in the foreign category. Three stars

Creation / *** (PG-13)

Darwin, it is generally agreed, had the most important idea in the history of science. Thinkers had been feeling their way toward it for decades, but it took Darwin to begin with an evident truth and arrive at its evident conclusion: Over the passage of many years, more successful organisms survive better than the less successful. The result is the improvement of future generations. This process he called "natural selection."

Blood Done Sign My Name / *** (PG-13)

"Blood Done Sign My Name" (R, 128 minutes). Dramatization of the changes that took place in Oxford. N.C., after the beating and murder of a young black Viet veteran by three white racists, and their acquittal by an all-white jury. Based on fact; one of the characters is Ben Chavis, later head of the NAACP. Straightforward. No fancy footwork, but involving and moving. Three stars

Happy Tears / *** (R)

"Happy Tears" (R, 95 minutes). Steady sister Laura (Demi Moore) and ditzy sister Jayne (Parker Posey) have to make a decision about their father Joe (Rip Torn), who is approaching senility under the care of his "nurse" Shelly (Ellen Barkin). She looks to us as if she practices a far older profession than nursing. Jayne is a compulsive shopper, dedicated to spending he money of her rich husband, and Laura is a scientist. They're opposites, except for family bonds that run more deeply than lifestyles. Torn is cantankerous, angry and stubborn as a mule. The movie is done with a nice screwy, sometimes stoned humor. Three stars