Lock the gate: there be dragons
FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE
TWO icons of Chinese martialarts flicks — director Tsui Hark and actor Jet Li — unite in “Flying Swords of Dragon Gate.” The story has been brought to the screen twice before (once by Tsui), but this version is the first in IMAX 3D, which is the main reason to see it.
The epic, set during the Ming Dynasty, concerns the search for hidden treasure at a desert trading post known as the Dragon Gate, but the plot is secondary. “Flying Swords” is to be seen for its eyepopping action. It’s nice to know that after making 45 or so flicks since 1979 (“Once Upon a Time in China” among them), Tsui is able to adapt to 3D, tailoring his shots to take advantage of the new technology. Who says you can’t teach a 62yearold director new tricks?
In Mandarin, with English subtitles. Running time: 121 minutes. Rated R (violence). At the AMC Loews 34th Street.
— V.A.Musetto
THE TALL MAN
JESSICA Biel plays a backwoods mom searching for her kidnapped son in the serviceable but ultimately silly thriller “The Tall Man.”
A decaying former mining town is plagued by an outbreak of child snatchings. Local folklore blames the kidnappings on a shadowy cloaked figure — the Tall Man — some claim to have seen in the vicinity. When muchrespected nurse Julia (Biel) loses her child, though, she puts up a more spirited fight than most. And she is drawn into an ever more tangled web, much of it seen through the eyes of a fragile girl (Jodelle Ferland) who can’t (or won’t) speak.
“The Tall Man” spits out enough scares and twists to maintain our interest, but the film’s psychosociological layer is almost as cheesy and unconvincing as its lowrent action scenes.
Running time: 106 minutes. Rated R (profanity, violence, terror). At the AMC Loews Village 7.
— KyleSmith
LITTLE BIRDS
CALIFORNIA’S Salton Sea, an inland saltwater lake known chiefly for its intractable pollution, makes an apt, if obvious, metaphoric backdrop for this indie comingofage tale. Teen agers Lily (Juno Temple) and Alison (Kay Panabaker) greet adulthood by running away to Los Angeles, which looks far less interesting in “Little Birds” than the trailers and abandoned furniture of the girls’ backwater home.
Director Elgin James, a former gang member, does manage a few lyrical shots. One delicate sequence shows Lily and Alison gazing at a group of boys skateboarding in the empty pool of an abandoned house, the girls mesmerized by the male camaraderie and casual physical prowess.
James’ script, though, is dolefully predictable, as is the casting. Lily is a pretty blonde with a welldeveloped figure; she must be a rebel eager to lose her sexual innocence. Brunette Alison has a body so far only lightly touched by puberty; she’s surely a sensible bookworm wary of boys.
Rounding out the typecasting are Leslie Mann as Lily’s trampy mother (how would a blonde survive without a trampy mom?), Neal McDonough as Alison’s kindly friend, Kyle Gallner as Lily’s untrustworthy first love and Kate Bosworth (Lord only knows what she’s doing here).
None of the actors has the heft to elevate this rote material, though to be fair, the task may be impossible. The dreamy shots of a poisoned sea in “Little Birds” show an imagination sorely missing from its drab plot and characters.
Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (sexuality, profanity, violence). At the Angelika, Houston and Mercer streets.
— Farran Smith Nehme
BREATHING
THE
raw Austrian drama “Breathing” marks two audacious debuts: the first time in the director’s chair for actor Karl Markovics (“The Counterfeiters,” 2007) and Thomas Schubert’s premiere as an actor. He plays 19yearold Roman, who was abandoned by his mother and raised in an orphanage. Now confined to a juvenile prison for killing another boy in a brawl, Roman is seeking release on parole, but he first needs to get and hold a job.
Answering a newspaper ad, he wins a daytimerelease job transporting corpses for the Vienna morgue. His functions also involve washing and dressing the dearly departed.
Roman’s fellow workers go about their job with the emotionless efficiency of an assembly line. In a masterfully executed scene, Roman’s crew cares for the body of an elderly woman found dead on the floor of her apartment. They carry the corpse to her bed, where they gently wash and dress it in preparation for the funeral. But, be warned, not all scenes are as delicate as this one.
By chance, one of the bodies Roman encounters has the same surname as he does, sending the darkhaired lad on a search for the mom he’s never known.
Markovics’ style recalls the work of Belgium’s wellregarded Dardenne brothers, especially their 2002 “The Son,” which has much in common with “Breathing.” The new film’s strongest point is the assured performance
by Schubert, who’s in nearly every frame. Elegant cinematography by Martin Gschlacht, one of Austria’s most soughtafter lensers, gives “Breathing” added depth.
In German, with English subtitles. Running time: 93 minutes. Not rated (disturbing images, nudity). At the Cinema Village, 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue. — Musetto
THE DAY
DOWN the dismal roads of a postapocalyptic landscape travel five goodlooking actors toting guns and machetes. They are fleeing a dystopian plot device, which in this case happens to be roving bands of cannibals but could have been zombies or mummies or radioactive Persian cats. The group happens upon a deserted farmhouse, where they’re soon besieged.
“The Day” suffers a bit of an identity crisis. Does it want to be a knowing pastiche, in the style of director Doug Aarniokoski’s mentor Robert Rodriguez? Suggesting “yes” are the costumes — which could go from cannibal deathmatch to Williamsburg nightclub without a single alteration — and the signature pirouettes that proceed every machete blow.
Or does the movie want to say something about humanity in a state of nature, like the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”? Sodden conversations (“However did we come to this, and what separates us from them?”) lend weight to this theory.
The film feels unbelievably long at 84 minutes, and the colordrained, handheld cinematography serves only as a reminder of just how good “Night of the Living Dead” really was.
The sole intrigue comes from Ashley Bell as Mary, a fighter with a secret. A smallboned woman composed largely of muscle, Bell has a granite stare that could make Clint Eastwood flinch. She stomps through “The Day” in overtheknee boots and a short floral dress, daring you to doubt that she could hoist a cannibal by his own meat hook.
Running time: 84 minutes. Rated R (strong violence, profanity, nudity). At the Empire, 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. — Nehme
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Benh Zeitlin's dazzling feature debut, a Sundance prize winners, stars an unforgettable Quvenzhane Wallis a 6yearold with no previous acting experience when it was shot as a feral youngster in a povertystricken, ramshackle Louisiana bayou village who could probably take Katniss Everdeen in a fair fight. But even she is tested by the fatal illness of her father (Dwight Henry) and a flood presaged by the appearance of prehistoric beasts in a very rare successful attempt at magic realism on the big screen. A masterpiece of lowbudget filmmaking and one of the year's best. (1hr
31)PG13. 6,9,18,28,36,39 — Lou
Lumenick
COMPLIANCE
A fastfood worker is stripped and humiliated due to a prank call. Depressing and infuriating, but an important film about our relationship with power. (1hr30)R. (profanity,nudity,sexualassault)9
— FarranSmithNehme
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Batman (Christian Bale) returns after an eightyear retirement (four years since the last movie) for a battle to the death with Bane (Tom Hardy), a hulking terrorist vowing to nuke Gotham City in the spectacularly entertaining, pulsepounding conclusion to Christopher Nolan's trilogy. Anne Hathaway as a slinky cat burglar, Joseph GordonLevitt as a heroic young cop and Marion Cotillard as an enigmatic millionaire join series regulars Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman in a twisty, surprisefilled epic. Your attention for nearly three hours pays off with a nailbiting, emotionally satisfying climax. (2hr 44)PG13.(intense action violence, profanity ,sensuality) 6,11,13,15,16,18,19, 27,37,38,39 — Lumenick
THE EXPENDABLES 2
The sequel is more fun than the original thanks to a tongueincheek script, larger roles for Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and a hilarious extended cameo by Chuck Norris, as Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham lead their overthehill gang of mercenaries in a mission to recover missing "weaponsgrade plutonium.'' (1hr42)R. (bloody violence)11, 13,15,16,22,28,30,38,39 — Lumenick
HIT & RUN
Government witness (Dax Shepard, who scripted and codirected) and girlfriend (Kristen Bell) are chased by bank robber (Bradley Cooper), federal marshal (Tom Arnold) in sporadically hilarious, hitandmiss update of '70s chase comedies like "Smokey and the Bandit.'' (1hr40)R. (graphicnudity, violence, profanity, drugs) 10,11,12,13,15,22,30,32,38,39
— Lumenick
LAWLESS
Listless, pretentious nonsense from overrated director John Hillcoat ("The Road'') about a moonshiner (Shia LaBeouf, who's awful) embroiled in a bloody war with a dandyish, corrupt lawman (an overthetop
Guy Pearce) in 1931 Virginia. Wastes such fine actors as Tom Hardy (as LaBeouf's unlikely older brother), Jessica Chastain and Gary Oldman in a talky, sceneryfilled flick that's closer to "The Dukes of Hazzard''' than "Boardwalk.'' (1hr55)R.(bloody violence, nudity, profanity) 6,11,13,15,16, 19,22,27,38,39 — Lumenick