HUNTER KILLER
R, 121 minutes. Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. Think of every military action movie cliche you can. The maverick hero who’s just an average guy. The uptight rule-following second-in-command who learns a good lesson. The token concerned woman who has one line. Enemies who aren’t so different after all. So many of these hackneyed stereotypes are thrown at the Gerard Butler-starring Navy thriller “Hunter Killer” that you have to wonder if this is the “Scary Movie” of submarine movies. Directed by Donovan Marsh, and with an army of action producers behind it, “Hunter Killer” is just this side of a parody. But there’s so much fun to be had with formula, and if you aren’t taking “Hunter Killer” all too seriously, the film is a hoot, even if that’s not exactly what the filmmakers were going for. Based on the novel “Firing Point” by George Wallace and Don Keith, adapted by Arne L. Schmidt and Jamie Moss, the plot concerns an underwater dogfight in the Barents Sea that’s keeping World War 3 at bay, while on the surface, a coup d’etat is unfolding at the Polyarny base in Russia. When the USS Tampa Bay goes down with 110 sailors, the target of a Russian torpedo, Captain Joe Glass (Butler) is yanked out of the Scottish highlands, where he’s bow hunting moose (naturally). He’s plopped at the helm of a “hunter killer” sub, the USS Arkansas, to figure out just what is going on in Kola Bay. If there’s a playbook, no one’s following it. Joe Glass, well, he’s not a regular captain; he’s a cool captain. “XO, would you rather be right or to be alive?” he asks his executive officer (Carter MacIntyre), who sputters every time Glass goes rogue, picking up a few Russian sailors from their sunken sub and piloting the Arkansas into a treacherous fjord littered with mines and sensors with the help of Russian captain Andropov (Michael Nyqvist). — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
MID90S
1/2 R, 84 minutes. Lisbon. Jonah Hill’s directorial debut “Mid90s” ends with what is seemingly the film’s inspirational spark. It’s a sequence shot in the style of those ‘90s homemade skate videos, the ones that would have been passed around on VHS tapes housed in battered paper covers. Set to classic rap music, the style is grainy, handheld, filmed mostly with a fish-eye lens, following teen boys on skateboards as they grind rails, kickflip and ollie. They hang out in parks, cruise in the backseats of cars and taunt the camera, helmed by a skater nicknamed “Fourth Grade.” It’s a perfectly executed slice of ‘90s nostalgia, and the film begs the question, just who are these kids? “Mid90s,” written and directed by Hill, opens with a shockingly violent beating, punches thrown by Ian (Lucas Hedges) at his little brother, Stevie (Sunny Suljic), thudding like cannonballs. This brutal beatdown is the true thesis of “Mid90s,” which explores the violent initiations of boys into manhood against the backdrop of a laid-back LA skate shop crew. The film’s poster tagline, “Fall. Get back up” underlines the notion of bootstrapping violent masculinity, but quickly, this coming-ofage film becomes body horror. Taking the hardest hits is the shrimpy, achingly young Stevie (Sunny Suljic). When his brother beats him in his bed, he swallows his cries. Repeatedly smacking into concrete while mastering his skateboard is cake. These are his own hits, not administered by his brother, and with these hits he’ll prove himself to the group of skater boys he idolizes who hang at the skate shop. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
NIGHT SCHOOL
1/2 PG-13, 111 minutes. Through today only at Waterford. For years, putting feisty comic Kevin Hart across from any movie star would automatically light a fire underneath an otherwise middling comedy. He was the magic ingredient, the spice that would enliven anything. But recently, Hart has been usurped as the secret sauce in any comedy sandwich. The challenger to his throne is “Girls Trip” breakout star Tiffany Haddish, and it was only a matter of time before the two faced off in a war of quippy comebacks. But in Malcolm D. Lee’s “Night School,” co-starring Hart and Haddish, Hart is now the star who needs a wacky supporting cast to prop him up this time around. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service