Review: "Troop Zero"

“Y’all will find life gets much easier if you don’t want so much.”
                    --Principal Massey

As a sucker for warmhearted, Southern-fried dramedies I wanted to like “Troop Zero” a lot more than I did.

It practically vibrates with authenticity, capturing life in 1977 Georgia in the fictional hamlet of Wiggly. It’s the sort of homespun place with one restaurant, Butte’s Chicken, where everybody knows everybody and nobody much has any money. Blacks and whites lived side-by-side long before integration because nobody here can understand that sort of foolishness and, again, there isn’t enough coin to have two of everything.

The bored librarian wears neon-blue eye shadow, children are pretty well left to their own devices and the town lawyer is a jolly cracker who can’t find his pants and keeps a toothbrush tucked behind one ear.

That would be Boss Man, daddy to the Boss, aka Christmas Flint, played by McKenna Grace. She was terrific in “Gifted” from a couple years ago playing a young genius, and here she’s playing a girl who’s not especially bright and a whole lot awkward.

Christmas lost her mom a year ago and is like a leftover puzzle piece, trying to figure out where she fits in the world.

She spends her evenings staring up at the stars, yearning to connect with life from outer space. On Earth, things are pretty glum, but Christmas has naïve innocence about her, all pigtails and goofy smiles.

Boss Man (Jim Gaffigan) is on the phone a lot or away helping clients who tend not to pay him, so Miss Rayleen (Viola Davis) ends up as her de facto guardian. She’s her dad’s secretary, but once harbored ambitions of her own toward going to law school and getting out of Wiggly.

Rayleen has a stern way about her, smoking and cussing, but we suspect there’s a lot of heart underneath. Mike Epps is Dwayne, the good-hearted neighbor/buddy/ex-con.

The story (screenplay by Lucy Alibar) gets kicked off by a visiting NASA scientist who is recording voices on a Golden Record that will be sent into space via satellite. The winners of the regional Birdie (think Girl) Scouts talent competition will get to be one of the voices, and obviously since Christmas is an alien nut it immediately becomes her quest.

This means getting past the school principal, “Nasty” Miss Massey (Allison Janney), who also doubles as the troop mother of the local Birdie troop, led by certified mean girl Piper (Ashley Brooke). So Christmas and Rayleen set about recruiting the dreggiest of dregs from the local kid populace. They include:

• “Hell-No” Price (Milan Ray), the local bully who believes firmly in collecting “taxes” from other students.
• Joseph (Charlie Shotwell), Christmas’ only true friend, who’s drawn more to musicals and costumes than football, and thus is nearly as much an outcast as her.
• Smash (Johanna Colón), who likes to do what her name implies and, as Christmas narrates, “is like the universe -- full of gas and mystery.”
• Anne-Claire (Bella Higginbotham), a wallflower who asks Jesus to help her decide everything, and wears a huge bandage on half of her glasses because of a missing eye.

Things fall into a fairly typical scrappy-underdogs-surprise-everyone type of plot, as Miss Massey and her troop of nasties throw up obstacles, while Troop Zero -- which they’re labeled because there are “no numbers left” -- overcome adversity and form unlikely friendships.

The movie is directed by director duo Amber Finlayson and Katie Ellwood (who go by Bert & Bertie, in an apparent bid to unseat McG for the title of Silliest Filmmaker Nickname). They seem to have the heart for this material but not a good notion what to do with it.

The kids’ interactions, which are the center of the movie, are a bit stilted and contrived. Davis and Janney are their usual magnificent selves, but the Oscar winners have one-note characters to work with.

“Troop Zero” is a little bit “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a little bit “Meatballs,” and not a little “Fried Green Tomatoes.” I love the ingredients but didn’t fall in love with the way they were put together. It needed some more time in the deep fryer to finish cooking through.

Review: "Man Down"

“Man Down” presents us with a dystopian nightmare, interspersed with flashbacks to what preceded it, and dares us to try to find where the true horror lies.

This ambitious but wandering war drama from director Dito Montiel (“Empire State”), who also co-wrote the screenplay with Adam G. Simon, stars Shia LaBeouf as Gabriel, a young but hardened Marine who is searching for his son. As the story opens he and fellow soldier/best friend Devin (Jai Courtney) are wandering a blasted landscape of crumbled buildings and reeking death. Their uniforms are mostly tatters, their buzz cuts have given way to long hair and beards.

Their mission, whatever it once was, is now centered on reuniting Gabriel with his family. We know from flashbacks that they previously served together in Afghanistan, but some colossal misfortune has since befallen the world. They whisper about infections, interrogate a scatterbrained scavenger (Clifton Collins Jr.) for information, and keep going.

Meanwhile, we see snippets of Gabriel’s seemingly idyllic life before the war, marriage to spunky, strong Natalie (Kate Mara) and tranquil father/son bonding with Jonathan (Charlie Shotwell). Plus the easy camaraderie with Devin, how they grew up practically as brothers.

But there are also scenes of Gabriel being interviewed by a Captain Payton (Gary Oldman), who keeps pressing him to talk about “the incident.” What at first seems to be a military debriefing becomes something like a counseling session, and we wonder how this question-and-answer duel fits in with his life before and after the apocalypse.

LaBeouf has grown thicker and grimmer after his early spate of roles as the fresh young thing, and he wears it well. He chews his dialogue, playing Gabriel as a guy who’s not terribly bright but earnest and true. When he tells the captain he feels “betrayed” by what went down in that sandy village, it exposes all sorts of emotional roots sunk deep.

LaBeouf has gotten a lot more attention for his publicity stunts/performance art/whatever you want to call it the last few years. But here is an actor with talent and dedication, searching for the right role. This one isn’t it, but in his screen presence we sense that yearning.

I can’t say more about “Man Down” without dissecting it into death. There are some surprises that aren’t terribly surprising if you’ve been paying attention, as well as some things we expected that don’t come to pass. It’s a well-meaning film but not an especially well executed one.

Review: "Captain Fantastic"

“Captain Fantastic” is about a rebel who learns the limits of rebellion. Viggo Mortensen plays Ben Cash, who long ago gave up on Western civilization and is raising his six kids in the woods like primitive American Indians.

They grow or hunt their own food -- the opening scene is of his eldest son tackling a deer and slitting its throat, thereby marking his ascension into manhood. They keep some books and musical instruments to feed their minds and souls, and have an old tour bus for rare trips into town for mail, phone calls and to barter their handmade goods.

Otherwise, they’re doing the Thoreau thing to such an extreme even Bernie Sanders might find their liberalism in need of watering down. They celebrate Noam Chomsky’s birthday instead of Christmas, for God’s sake.

Then Ben’s wife, who has been hospitalized for some time with mental illness, dies, and he and the children undertake an adventure to attend the funeral in New Mexico and see that her last wishes are honored -- namely, cremation and flushing down the nearest toilet. Mom (Trin Miller, glimpsed only in flashbacks and visions) may have been schizophrenic and depressed, but she did not lack a sense of humor.

This means confronting modern American society, which to the kids is as alien as Jupiter, with its heffalump-sized people, violent video games and obsession with material stuff. Representing the epitome of The Man is Ben’s father-in-law (Frank Langella), a rich and connected fellow who has forbidden the motley clan from attending the burial ceremony.

The two men, representing arch extremes of the American Dream, are set up for an inevitable showdown.

If this were all there was to the movie, then I doubt I would’ve admired “Captain Fantastic” as much as I did. Sure, Mortensen has a sly, dry charisma to his performance, the kids are distinctive and authentic, and there’s plenty of comedic material in their encounters with everyday awfulness.

“What’s cola?” one munchkin asks during an impromptu (and abortive) visit to a diner. “Poison water,” Ben deadpans.

But writer/director Matt Ross -- who won the director award at the Cannes Film Festival -- takes the next, more ambitious steps. Without giving too much away, the movie shows the supremely confident Ben confronted with his own ego. He’s forced to recognize that the super-kids he’s raising are still just children, and have needs beyond the intense home-schooling and survival skills he imparts with a stern hand.

The relationship between Ben and his children is at the heart of the movie. Each child actor shines, creating a distinct personality that stands out while assimilating into the group’s commune existence.

George MacKay plays Bodevan, the eldest. (All the children have unique names, so they’re the only one of them in the world.) Though he’s smart enough to get into every Ivy League school -- applications made without his father’s knowledge -- Bo finds he knows little of the real world, especially young women.

Kielyr and Vespyr (Samantha Isler and Annalise Basso) are the red-haired voices of reason and contemplation. Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton) is the tween and resident rebel, and the most eager to leave the cloistered home. Zaja (Shree Crooks) is 8 years old but can already give an insightful overview of the Citizens United Supreme Court case. Nai (Charlie Shotwell) is the youngest and most mercurial, having to be reminded to wear clothes at meals.

(Though Dad also needs such reminders, as we see in a brief encounter with Mortensen breaking his fast.)

“Captain Fantastic” is a very entertaining film, but I was impressed by its willingness to question its own premise. Here is a family with its own very radical interpretation of independence, finding that true wisdom isn’t relegated to a single place or creed.