Movie Capsule Reviews
CHAPLIN OF THE MOUNTAINS ★★ ½
Kurdish director Jano Rosebiani’s roadtrip conceit is a bit formulaic, clearly used so that Rosebiani can bring up all the tortured recent history of the Kurds. The actors aren’t bad, but their scripted lines sometimes lapse into message delivery. Yet there’s a simplicity and directness here that keeps things aloft; this wholehearted sincerity feels much fresher than any number of slicker, more cynical films. (1hr26)NR. (adult themes) — FarranSmithNehme
ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME ★★★
The Broadway legend, now in her late 80s, gives much of herself in this loving and unflinching documentary filmed around her latest (and possibly final) onewoman cabaret tour. Second to none in her straightshooting candor, Stritch embodies the Sondheim anthem “I’m Still Here,” while speculating about — gasp — retirement. (1 hr20) NR.(language) — SaraStewart
ODD THOMAS ★
This supernatural action pic, based on a novel by Dean Koontz, makes a supremely awkward transition from page to screen. Anton Yelchin, as Odd, is a guy who can see the deceased and wants to help. Unfortunately, it’s this film that’s dead on arrival. (1hr36) NR.(violence, language) — Stewart
OMAR ★★★
Palestine’s entry in the Foreign Film Oscar race is the story of how the title character (Adam Bakri) is coerced into being an informant for the Israelis. Director Hany AbuAssad (“Paradise Now”) is a smidge overfond both of the remarkable beauty of his leads and his symbolic vocabulary. But he knows how to create a twisty plot full of doublecrossing characters, and how to make the fates of those characters matter. “Omar” eventually becomes a sunscorched neonoir — and the fadeout is an unforgettable jolter. (1hr36)minutesNR. (violence) — Nehme
POMPEII ★★
Spectacular special effects and exciting fight sequences carry the day as Mount Vesuvius and laughter erupt in Paul W.S. Anderson’s campy guilty pleasure of a historical epic, which serves up a “Gladiator’’ knockoff starring Kit Harington of “Game of Thrones’’ as a gladiatorslave trying to save Emily Browning from a marriage to nasty Roman senator Kiefer Sutherland as an appetizer to surprisingly effective apocalyptic images. (1hr44) PG13. (violence) — LouLumenick
3 DAYS TO KILL ★
Kevin Costner is a dying hit man who, while on a mission to reconnect with his teen daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) in Paris, is dragged back into dirty work for One Last Job by a glam CIA agent (Amber Heard). Oh, and she also has the antidote to his brain and lung cancer. Mostly a dim comedy about violence colliding with parenting problems as in last fall’s “The Family,” this is the kind of movie where a guy stops to ask the man he’s about to torture for a spaghetti sauce recipe that’ll please his daughter. (1hr57) PG13.(actionv-iolence, profanity, sensuality) — KyleSmith