DON’T BREATHE
1/2 R, 88 minutes. Through today only at Westbrook. Still playing at Waterford, Lisbon. 2016 has been a banner year for excellent horror films, which seems at times appropriate, given the horrors of this calendar year — shootings, war, natural disaster, an unprecedented presidential campaign. When it feels like the world is going to hell in a handbasket, there’s catharsis to be found in a horror film where the final girl fights off the boogey man. Add Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe” to the canon of instant-classic horror movies of 2016, joining “Green Room,” “Lights Out” and “The Conjuring 2.” Like “Lights Out,” “Don’t Breathe” revolves around an ingenious concept — a team of teen burglars rob the house of a blind man who isn’t so helpless — and like “Green Room,” it taps into devastatingly contemporary cultural undercurrents. The teen burglars live in the wasteland of a downtrodden Detroit; home invasion burglary seems like the only way out for these lower-middle class white kids. The trio is driven by their lack of options, and as have-nots, feel somewhat justified in stealing from the haves. It’s not long before they’re tipped off to a Gulf War vet (Steven Lang), sitting on a large cash settlement from his daughter’s wrongful death, hit by a teen driver. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
HELL OR HIGH WATER
R, 102 minutes. Through today only at Mystic Luxury Cinemas. Still playing at Westbrook. “Hell or High Water” is one of the best movies of the year: Alternately tense and hilarious, this small-scale story of brotherly bank-robbers and the Texas Rangers out to stop them stands out in a year of bloated superhero flicks, unnecessary sequels and failed reboots. It’s also one of the few artistically successful ventures to examine the lingering effects of the 2008 economic crash and the modest recovery experienced by many normal folks on the ground. Toby Howard (Chris Pine) teams up with his ne’er-do-well ex-con brother Tanner (Ben Foster) to take down a series of small scores at a local chain of banks in Texas. Hot on their heels are Texas Rangers Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). The Howards are trying to raise capital to save the family farm; in classic “cops and robbers” fashion, the Rangers are trying to stop them. Just beyond, or perhaps just behind, the cat-andmouse game there is an underlying sense of injustice and inequality: As the two pairs of characters travel through the West Texas highways and byways, the background betrays a land that the recovery never reached. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they find some moral support from the locals. No one joins them in their shootouts. But no one at a local diner seems too perturbed by the duo getting away with a modest score from the bank next door, either; they’ve seen too many of their friends and neighbors lose their houses. — Sonny Bunch, Special To The Washington Post
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS
PG-13, 132 minutes. Westbrook. With “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond the Pines,” filmmaker Derek Cianfrance has proved that he has a knack for both intimate romantic fables and sweeping family epics that span decades. In his adaptation of M.L. Stedman’s 2012 debut novel “The Light Between Oceans,” Cianfrance makes a film that is both epic and intimate, a love story intertwined with tragedy. In stars Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender, he finds performers who manage to deftly inhabit the characters, and just keep it from tipping over into Nicholas Sparks-style soapy melodrama. “The Light Between Oceans” boasts fine performances and exquisite filmmaking in the cinematography, production, sound and costume design, and it’s almost enough to shake off the clingy soapy residue that comes with the romantic drama territory. It’s 1918 Australia, and Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender) a veteran of the Great War, is seeking some solitude in order to process his experience. He takes a post as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Island, and en route to his new home, catches the eye of a young local woman, Isabel (Vikander). — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
PG-13, 132 minutes. Niantic, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. Seven warriors fight for the vulnerable, in a formula that bears revisiting in “The Magnificent Seven.” Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 masterpiece, “Seven Samurai,” begat the classic 1960 Western “The Magnificent Seven,” then a late ‘90s TV series and now, a big budget action adventure Western directed by Antoine Fuqua. It’s an appealing concept — bad guys who can be good, loners who can work together and find camaraderie in a team when it comes to protecting innocents. With the blockbuster cast that Fuqua has assembled, including Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio and Peter Sarsgaard, as well as stunning cinematography by Mauro Fiore, this Western epic remake should be an easy home run. It’s all there —