NOW PLAYING
Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘BENEDICTION’: In Terence Davies’ “Benediction,” a moving portrait of English war poet Siegfried Sassoon, the blessing bestowed is both literal and cinematic. While older Siegfried
(Peter Capaldi) receives a blessing from a priest while converting to Catholicism, much to the chagrin of his adult son, George (Richard Goulding), the true benediction of “Benediction” is much more than just the on-screen ritual. The blessing of the film is the film itself, and the extraordinary grace that Davies extends toward his subject, a poet who made his pain public but had to keep his intimate life private. 2:17. 3 ½ stars.
— Katie Walsh, Tribune News Services
‘HUSTLE’: If a long sigh were a person, he would be NBA scout Stanley Sugerman (Adam Sandler). He’s burned out and his dreams have been dashed. Or as tells his wife (Queen Latifah): “Guys in their
50s don’t have dreams, they have nightmares. And eczema.” So he swallows his pride and drags his suitcase through Europe, looking for potential international draft picks. When he arrives in Spain, he spies a 6-foot-9 ringer in Timberlands (Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangomez) crushing it in a street game and walking away with a fistful of cash. That’s one kind of hustle the title is referring to. There’s another — of a man past his prime who perks up when he spots a diamond in the rough. Stanley is convinced this humble construction worker named Bo Cruz is his next great find. His boss with the Philadelphia 76ers says no way, the guy’s a nobody, so Stanley brings the kid back
to the States anyway, on his own dime. But wait, there’s another kind of hustle at play — of the drive needed to compete at the NBA level. Bo is quiet and inexperienced and sometimes rattled by trash talk. There’s an assault charge from his past that complicates matters. But he has Stanley in his corner. Poor beaten-down Stanley, who believes in this kid. And friends, you have yourselves a sports drama. Streaming on Netflix.
1:57. 2 stars. — Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune
‘I’M CHARLIE WALKER’:
It’s never a good thing when the postscript to a film based on a true story is more interesting than the actual movie itself. This is unfortunately the case with Patrick Gilles’ “I’m Charlie Walker,” a biopic about an enterprising Black trucker who won a lucrative contract to help clean up the largest oil spill in
San Francisco Bay history in 1971 when two Standard Oil tankers collided. As interview footage of the real Charlie Walker plays with text cards just before the credits roll, it’s clear that this film would have
been better as a documentary. “I’m Charlie Walker” has all the makings of an entertaining period piece: a little-known true story, an environmental disaster, a colorful setting and a fascinating subject in Charlie, played by the compelling actor Mike Colter (“Luke Cage”). It should be a gripping tale of triumph over adversity set against a unique backdrop and moment in cultural history. But the narrative gets bogged down in questions of permitting and licenses and blackmail, and the script has a bad case of telling us, rather than showing, the problems that Charlie faces. Gilles manages to make every choice that renders this story completely uninteresting. Available via video on demand. 1:18. 1 star.
— Katie Walsh
‘THE JANES’: In 1968, a group of mostly white, mostly middle-class Chicago women formed the Jane Collective, with the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union stepping in to help a year later. At the time abortion was illegal in 30 states, including Illinois, and permitted in limited circumstances in the other 20. Jane operated a Hyde Park home called the Front, with counseling provided to pregnant women. From there, women were driven to an apartment called the Place, where the procedures were performed by a man with shadowy underworld connections identified in the documentary only as “Mike.” (For Jane, he went by the handle “Dr. Kaplan” even though he wasn’t one.) Spurred by a decade of protest and dissent, the women came out of the widespread anti-war and civil rights movements. Those movements were largely dismissive of what one Jane member sarcastically characterizes as “the woman question.” With so many women, and girls, dying from botched abortions amid grim, furtive circumstances, they felt it was time to act. Streaming on HBO Max. 1:41. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION’:
The “Jurassic Park”/“Jurassic World” franchise always favored a janky, what-should-wetry-this-time approach. Fans of dinosaurs and the 1993 Steven Spielberg original based on Michael Crichton’s novel, have been forgiving enough to show up for most or all of the sequels, with their new batches of dinosaurs and hilariously secondary humans. As I took my seat for a recent preview screening of “Jurassic World Dominion,” the family on my left was debating which was the worst in the series so far: the second movie in the first trilogy or the second in the second. Well, it’s neither. I’m afraid it’s this new one, “Jurassic World
Dominion,” and neither its blobby story structure nor a frenetic running time of nearly two and a half hours is the problem, really. The problem is filmmaking craft, and how little director Colin Trevorrow (who made “Jurassic World”) brings to bear on the project. Something’s off here, all the way through the film’s warring personalities and wan subplots. The results may enjoy a big haul this summer, given the film’s nostalgic Grand Finale trappings and the melding of the first trilogy’s headliners — Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum — with the second trilogy’s nominal leads. But you know how it is with brand-name blockbusters. The IP is everything. 2:27. 2 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’:
It couldn’t outmaneuver the pandemic enemy that delayed its release for two years, but “Top Gun: Maverick” can’t lose, really. It’s a pretty good time, and often a pretty good movie. It’s cozy. And it’ll be catnip for those eager to watch Tom Cruise flash That Look. What is That Look? It’s the half-smile of insubordination when a superior officer (Ed Harris or Jon Hamm this time) busts test pilot and congenital speedneeder Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s chops, ineffectively. It’s The Look that goes with an eternally boyish voice and demeanor. Capt. Mitchell, who lives alone in the desert with his beloved Kawasaki motorcycle, is called to a new and time-sensitive duty by his old cohort Iceman (Val Kilmer), now a U.S. Pacific Fleet commander. Maverick has three weeks to train a group of new
Top Gun aces to destroy a uranium enrichment plant in an unspecified but assuredly Slavic location. One of the trainees is Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the grudge-laden son of Maverick’s late radar intercept officer, Goose, played by Anthony Edwards back when. It’s silly-rousing enough to satisfy younger and older audiences alike. It may help to have hated the original, but I liked this one, even though it’s not so very different from the first. Thirty-six years from now, we’ll probably be watching Cruise teaching a new cadre of flying aces. Only the planet will have changed. 2:17. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘WATCHER’: In Chloe Okuno’s stylish debut “Watcher,” the title refers not just to one person, but two, when the watched becomes the watcher, the stalker and stalked swapping places throughout the course of this chilly psychological thriller. Working in the vein of ’70s-style horror, Okuno’s “Watcher” is in dialogue with films like Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” nods to Andrzej Zulawski’s “Possession” with its foreboding European setting, and features a Hitchcock blonde in Julia (Maika Monroe). But those films about vulnerable women caught in voyeuristic traps were all directed by men, and with Okuno, a female writer/director, telling the story, it’s a very different result, one that’s emotionally and ethically complex, but undeniable in its bold clarity. 1:35. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.