Passion projects hit the screens
Boogeyman tale rooted in Wisconsin
‘Patriots Day’
It’s a week for passion projects at the movies, starting with “Patriots Day,” about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Mark Wahlberg plays a Boston cop working crowd detail on the day of the marathon, and is not far away when the bomb goes off. Kevin Bacon leads the feds on the scene, with J.K. Simmons and John Goodman fellow law- men on the case.
Directed by Peter Berg, who has made a habit of filming truestory dramas with Wahlberg (“Lone Survivor,” “Deepwater Horizon”), “Patriots Day” is getting generally positive reviews, with a glaring exception: Boston Globe critic Ty Burr called the movie “neither great nor gawdawful . ... At best, it’s unnecessary. At worst, it’s vaguely insulting.”
“Patriots Day” is rated R for violence, graphic injury images, pervasive language and some drug use. It runs for 133 minutes.
‘Silence’
Martin Scorsese has been trying to get “Silence” made for 28 years. Based on a 1966 novel by celebrated Japanese writer Shusaku Endo, the story centers on two young priests, played by Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, who head into 16th-century Japan to retrieve their missionary mentor, a priest played by Liam Neeson who reportedly has renounced Christianity in a land where that faith is forbidden.
USA TODAY critic Brian Truitt gave the movie 31⁄2 stars, saying while it’s “excessively long,” it “effectively explores the brutal costs of unbending faith.” “Silence” is rated R for violence. It runs for 161 minutes.
‘Live by Night’
Of Ben Affleck’s four movies as a director, two — his first, “Gone Baby Gone,” and his latest, “Live by Night” — are based on novels by crime-story maven Dennis Lehane.
“Live by Night” is a period piece, with Affleck starring as a World War I veteran who goes outlaw during Prohibition. When things go wrong, he goes south, to Florida, where other deals, and other trouble, await. Elle Fanning plays an evangelist turning his head, at least when Zoe Saldana, as his Florida lover, is not.
Critics so far haven’t been kind to “Live by Night,” although Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt liked it enough to give it a B-minus, saying Affleck’s no-chances-taken approach “gives us a story as comfortably worn and shady as an old fedora.” “Live by Night” is rated R for violence, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity. It runs for 129 minutes.
‘The Bye Bye Man’
The first boogeyman movie of 2017, “The Bye Bye Man” sends three college friends in pursuit of the truth about the title ghoul, whose curse makes people do unspeakable things.
The only way to break it: Don’t say his name, and don’t think about him. Good luck with that.
The movie is based on a story by Robert Damon Schneck, whose “strange but true” chronicle follows three college students in Sun Prairie, Wis., in 1990 after they encounter the legend of the Bye Bye Man.
“The Bye Bye Man” is rated PG-13 for violence, gore, sexual content, thematic elements, partial nudity, some language and teen drinking. It runs for 96 minutes.
‘Sleepless’
In “Sleepless,” Jamie Foxx plays a dirty Vegas cop gunning for the gangsters who kidnapped his son after a deal goes wrong — while he tries to elude an internal affairs investigator (Michelle Monaghan) determined to bring him down.
Gabrielle Union, Tip “T.I.” Harris and Dermot Mulroney costar.
“Sleepless” is rated R for violence and pervasive language. It runs for 94 minutes.
‘Monster Trucks’
So this guy, determined to leave home in the rear-view mirror, builds his own monster truck from scavenged bits and pieces — including, to his surprise, a creature from the deep that has just as big a need for speed as him. Get it? It’s a monster truck. Behold “Monster Trucks,” a movie whose studio has already taken a $115 million write-down in anticipation of its poor box-office fate.
How bad is it? Variety’s chief film critic, Peter Debruge, called “Monster Trucks” “a lame kids’ movie reverse-engineered from a worse pun.”
“Monster Trucks” is rated PG for brief scary images and some rude humor. It runs for 105 minutes.