Review: "Uncle Frank"

 

 

"Uncle Frank" is one of those movies that is heartfelt, splendidly acted and as predictable as a sunset. 

It's written and directed by Alan Ball, who won an Oscar for the screenplay for "American Beauty," which was something truly original and even subversive. In "Uncle Frank" he has created something utterly maudlin that wraps itself in a blanket of self-regard.

Paul Bettany plays the titular character, a man from South Carolina who moved to New York City because he was smart and gay. The smart part we figure out pretty quickly, and soon thereafter the gay smart. We can tell this from the very first scene because while home for his father's birthday he gives thoughtful gifts, doesn't yell at the children or watch football. Gay!

I just hate, hate, hate these movies that present everyone from the South as walking caricatures. Stephen Root plays the dad, whose contempt for his own child is so palpable it practically manifests into physical form. It's never explored, simply presented for effect.

Steve Zahn plays Frank's brother, Mike, well on his way to following in dad's hateful, hurtful footsteps. Judy Greer is his wife, Kitty, and Jane McNeill plays his sister, Neva, who is the one who "knows" about him. The great Margo Martindale plays his mother, who mostly stays in the kitchen but has a big heart.

Lois Smith turns up as the batty Aunt Butch, and I'll just let that name sit there where it belongs.

The person Frank is Uncle to is Beth, Mike and Kitty's daughter, played by Sophia Lillis, who you may remember from her terrific performance as Beverly in the first "It," the first one that wasn't terrible. It's doubtful you'd remember her if "Uncle Frank" was the first thing you saw her in, because the script gives her almost nothing to do but observe and be present. 

When Beth was a mousy kid, Uncle Frank counseled her to get out of Creekville and be whoever she wants to be, rather than what others expect of her. So a few years later she hightails it to New York University, where Frank is an English professor. Of course, he's not taking his own advice, living in the closet even though he's been with his boyfriend, Wally (Peter Macdissi), for a number of years.

The story is set in 1973, which was an interesting time to be gay. After the Stonewall Riots, the LBGTQ community (as we call it now, but not then) was in the pubic conscious for the first time, though usually relegated to cheap jokes in TV and the movies. Down South, though, the movie presents homosexuality as still a fire-and-brimstone offense, worthy of shunning or even stoning.

Of course, once things turn around for Frank and his family -- as we know they must -- the womenfolk will come around with stories about how their hairdresser or friend from school is also "that way" ... and it's really no big deal! 

That seems to be the big takeaway of "Uncle Frank": being gay is no big deal!

I liked Bettany, playing a sort of morose man who takes things in stride as best he can. He puts on a serene front of a self-assured intellectual, but deep down his dad's hatred -- along with a teen romance we learn about in flashback -- weighs heavily upon him. 

The precipitating event is Frank's father's death, the subsequent road trip home with Beth for the funeral, and the expected revelation of his sexual prefer... orientation! I mean orientation! Because Webster's tells me so, or at least it does now (after some recent, hasty changes).

Wally follows along, and Macdissi is the one breath of fresh air in the movie, playing an Arabic man who is confidently, openly gay. Always with a smile on his face, an open ear and a hug at the ready, Wally is light years ahead of Frank in terms of his personal journey. He's willing to wait around for Frank to catch up, but not forever.

I realize as I'm wrapping up that it sounds like I hated this movie. I didn't. It's a fine effort. The cast is splendid, and I'm a sucker for any movie featuring lots of vintage cars. It never drags and a few sections are genuinely enjoyable.

If it's possible to like everything about a movie except its basic premise, then "Uncle Frank" is it. Maybe this is the sort of visceral disconnect people had with "Green Book" that baffled me. A man coming out to his family in 1973 just doesn't seem like very daring or even interesting subject matter for a film in 2020. 

I think maybe if the Frank-Beth relationship was what really drove the story, I'd feel different. But she winds up being a blank slate who's still mostly blank at the end. Though she does get one humdinger of a one-liner while visiting an auto repair shop. If Ball had kept things going with her, or given Beth her own parallel obstacles to overcome, then Frank's anguish would seem more palpable.

Instead, she's pretty much relegated to the background for the back half of "Uncle Frank." Meanwhile, Frank wrestles with his dad's ghost and his own bitter memories, and the end point of his trip might as well be a flashing billboard everyone can see way, way off. 

Here's a movie that never kept me guessing.

Video review: "Halloween"

Why in the world did we need another entry in the exhausted “Halloween” franchise? The studio can give you 253 million reasons.

That was the box office tally of the newest Michael Myers slasher flick, and the first one to feature Jamie Lee Curtis since “Halloween: Resurrection” 17 years ago. It completely retcons the series, banishing all the movies since the second one from its memory -- the sequels, the reboots, the remakes -- and taking us back to square of the smart, tenacious girl and the masked psycho who wants to slash her to bits.

Except, of course, both Laurie Strode (Curtis) and Myers aka The Shape (played this time by Nick Castle) are both grandparent age by now. Indeed, Myers spends more time chasing Strode’s granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak) than Laurie, who has become a pistol-packin’ grandma and recluse who seems to have done little over the past 40 years but wait for Myers to get out of prison.

Supporting characters include Will Patton as a veteran cop in Haddonfield, the fictional city where all the mayhem takes place; Judy Greer as Laurie’s estranged daughter; and Haluk Bilginer as Dr. Sartain, the oddball psychiatrist who’s been treating Myers without much success, just as Donald Pleasance’s Dr. Loomis did.

The new “Halloween” has a creative team from a comedy background: director David Gordon Green and his fellow screenwriters, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. It’s not a total yuk-fest, but they do slip in some comedic moments to lighten the mood.

Me? I likes my scary movies pure scary.

Bonus features are decent. They include seven deleted or extended scenes and the following documentary shorts:

• Back in Haddonfield: Making Halloween
• The Original Scream Queen
• The Sound of Fear
• Journey of the Mask
• The Legacy of Halloween

Movie:



Extras:

Review: "Halloween"

“Halloween” is a decently energetic horror flickershow. But it doesn’t pass the basic litmus test of, “Does this movie need to exist?”

As you know, this film reunites Jamie Lee Curtis, in her most seminal role as Laurie Strode, with Michael Myers, with white-masked, silent killer who tried unsuccessfully to off her in the original movie of the same title from 40 years ago. It’s essentially a reunion.

But then, they already held this party in 1998 for “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later.” She managed to whack off Michael’s head with an axe in that one, Lizzie Borden-style. Undeterred, he reappeared a few years later for “Halloween: Resurrection,” and returned the favor by killing Laurie.

And this doesn’t even take into account the Rob Zombie reboot and its own sequel a few years back, or the various Laurie-less sequels of the 1980s and ‘90s. “Halloween III” didn’t even bother with featuring Michael or Laurie, making television the villain, or something.

The point is, it’s impossible to take this franchise seriously any longer. It’s been rebooted and remade and retconned to hell and back again. There is no sense of consequences because anybody who dies can just be brought back for the next iteration by the next round of filmmakers. Rinse and repeat.

This 40th anniversary reunion is part homage to the original and part new story jag. It requires us to ignore all the previous Halloween movies since the second one. It even asks us to forget that Laurie and Michael are supposed to be brother and sister -- a key piece of the franchise’s iconography for five decades.

In this telling, Michael Myers has been rotting in a mental institution for the past 40 years, never speaking a word to anyone. Meanwhile, Laurie seems to have done little in the years between other than arming herself and preparing for the eventual day he would come after her again.

There’s another creepy, vaguely European doctor trying to puzzle his way into Michael’s brain, Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer). Laurie takes on look at him and cuts to the chase: “You’re the new Loomis,” she says, referring to Donald Pleasance’s psychiatrist, whose obsession turned from curing Michael to ending him. I think Pleasance has actually been in more Halloween movies than Curtis.

Judy Greer plays Laurie’s estranged adult daughter, who was raised under the threat of Michael’s return, and has her own teen daughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak). She goes off to a Halloween party with her friends, and soon finds herself stalked by her grandmother’s not-brother.

Will Patton turns up as Frank Hawkins, a veteran cop in the fictional town of Haddonfield, who reputedly was the first one on the scene for the 1978 murders. He putters around here and there, discovering the bodies Michael leaves in his wake, killing time until his own inevitable offing.

Nowhere in the movie is it ever mentioned that Michael would have to be close to 70 years old now. You’d think at some point even maniacal serial killers would segue from slicing horny teenagers to Metamucil and a nice day in the park.

Directed by David Gordon Green, who comes from a comedy background and co-wrote the screenplay with funnyman Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, “Halloween” contains a smattering of funny moments, such as two police officers comparing their lunches while sitting in their patrol car waiting to be stabbed.

How very different the horror genre has gotten in the last 40 years. I don’t think the original “Halloween” would’ve become anything like the iconic film it is with this sort of verbal diarrhea and passing attempts at levity.

John Carpenter knew that when you’re trying to scare people, concentrate on the scaring.

Review: "The 15:17 to Paris"

You can appreciate a bold choice while still recognizing that it was the wrong one.

Such is the case with Clint Eastwood's "The 15:17 to Paris," a drama about a 2015 terrorist attack on a train that was thwarted by three young Americans, two of them military service members. After initially casting three actors to play the heroes, Eastwood did a sudden about-face and decided to use the actual men in the movie, recreating not only the attack but their journeys -- figurative and otherwise -- leading up to it.

That was mistake #1... and mistake #2.

Acting is one of those things people think anybody can do, until they try to do it. Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos are obviously fine young men, but it's often painful watching the movie and wading through their blank expressions, flat line delivery and emotional vacancy. Stone is the best of the bunch, which is to say he's ready for a walk-on role in a community college play.

How hard can it be to play yourself? Pretty difficult in a feature film, what with all the lights and equipment, long delays between setups and logistics of hitting your mark, etc. And of course, it's natural to want to behave like an idealized version of yourself, rather than the flawed, authentic person we all are.

The movie could survive the leaden performances -- the events are certainly compelling enough -- but mistake #2 proves even more fatal. In basing the story on the book the three men wrote (along with Jeff Stern), the film explores not just the events of that fateful day, but everything leading up to it: their childhood friendship, struggles to find purpose after high school, early military careers, etc.

On the surface, it seems like a logical move. Eastwood and screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal can't center an entire movie around an encounter that lasted a few minutes. And we have to get to know these three fellows in order to be invested in their story.

But the prologue ends up consuming two-thirds of the movie, which even at a scant 97 minutes often drags badly.

The deadliest stretch chronicles their trip across Europe prior to the fateful train ride, which has all the narrative cohesion of YouTube footage of a real twentysomething's unedited travelogue. They go to a pub in Germany, nightclub dancing in Amsterdam, eat at a riverside Venice cafe, make copious use of the selfie stick, etc. All the while, chatting amiably and aimlessly about where they should go and what they should do next.

Skarlatos, who joined the Army and was on leave from Afghanistan at the time, comes across as earnest and a little dizzy. Sadler is the charmer of the group, who as a kid got in trouble at their Christian school for spewing expletives at the teachers. Stone is a bit of a big doofus, kind and outgoing and a bit of a screw-up as an Air Force airman, washing out of school to be that branch's version of a medic.

Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer are more or less wasted as the single mothers of Skarlatos and Stone, respectively, showing for a few clashes with the awful school principal (Thomas Lennon) and then for the medal awarding ceremony at the end.

The movie finally hits its stride in the last half-hour. After brief flashes of the incident during the interminable wind-up, we see how the encounter with the terrorist (Ray Corasani) played out, in all its bizarre and bloody mayhem. The man had an AK-47, a pistol, blades and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Dozens, if not hundreds would almost surely have been killed.

After overcoming and shooting another man who initially tried to stop him, the attacker was tackled by Stone and beaten to submission by the trio. It all plays out in the confined space of a train cabin, and in those few moments Eastwood reminds us of his magnificent ability as a director to depict violence while contemplating the repercussions of it.

Alas, I can't recommend one-third of a good movie. "The 15:17 to Paris" mostly goes to show that often the best way to enshrine history is to fake it... and leaving the boring parts out.

Video review: "Men, Women & Children"

Jason Reitman’s “Men, Women & Children” is a noble effort but not a successful film. It’s worth a look on video, because there are a few moments of quiet power in its ensemble cast and intersecting storylines. Other sections, though, wander.

The topic is sex, specifically how modern technology and digital interfaces reverberate in how we relate to each other romantically. The drama serves as a cautionary tale about letting contrived expectations interfere with the actual flesh-and-blood human beings we’re affectionate with.

The focus is mostly on teenagers, though adults figure into the mix, too. Kaitlyn Dever and Ansel Elgort play decent but confused kids who embark on a tender romance. Meanwhile, though, her mother (Jennifer Garner) is tracking her every movement and text message, terrified of what’s roaming out there in the digital ether.

Other stories include a mom (Judy Greer) who is distributing risqué photos of her own daughter on the web to paying customers, and a middle-aged couple (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt) who are bored with each other but find excitement in random hook-ups with strangers they meet online.

Even more unsettling is the tale of a young girl who struggles with her body and her virginity, both of which she views as a burden rather than things to be celebrated. So she punishes herself by starving herself, and receives encouragement (!) from like-minded young women online.

There’s a lot to admire about this film, as it dares to ask uncomfortable questions about how we live and love today. The movie ultimately loses its way, but the journey is worthwhile.

Movie:

Review: "Men, Women & Children"

"Men, Women & Children" is an audacious, ambitious film that dives into the deep end of cinematic contemplation and, eventually, disappears beneath the ripples it commenced. But not before a heroic effort.

It's not so much a coherent story as a mirror turned around at the audience, daring them to consider how we live today, how the digital age has bent and distorted the way we approach love and sex -- especially teenagers, who have never lived in a world without instant communication and universal access to visual gratification.

This is one of the rare movies I wish was longer; its sprawling narrative and heady themes needed more space to give themselves a full workout. Director and co-writer Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air") ends up drowning in the same trouble that afflicts most films with large ensemble casts and intersecting storylines: it moves on too quickly when it should linger, and tarries when it has outlasted its purpose.

If the notion of underage kids communicating graphically about what they'd like to do to each other is shocking to you, then you might sympathize with Patricia, played by Jennifer Garner. She monitors every step her daughter Brandy (Kaitlyn Dever) takes online -- she reads the girl's text messages before she sees them, deleting if she finds them objectionable. Using tracking software on Brandy's phone, mom knows her daughter's whereabouts 24/7. Indeed, Patricia, with her pained expression and wounded eyes, doesn't seem to have a job or a personal life, only a cause: to keep kids safe online -- even if it means stripping them of any semblance of freedom.

Needless to say, Brandy is driven to seek release, and finds it with Tim (Ansel Elgort), another wayward soul. He's the star running back of the football team, but quits mid-season so he can have more time to play Guild Wars, an online role-playing video game. He's bereft by a personal loss, and in Brandy sees a companion with whom to drift. They plug the rents in each other's fragile psyches, forming a relationship that is -- by the standards of other couplings in the film -- remarkably healthy and not dictated by sex.

On the other extreme is Hannah (Olivia Crocicchia), a 16-year-old who flaunts her sexuality instinctively, aided by a mother (Judy Greer) who enables her Hollywood ambitions. They take risqué, but not obscene, photos of her and post them on a website -- including private shoots for paying customers. What's scarier than the idea of a mother basically pimping out her daughter is that neither seems to fully grasp the impact of what they're doing.

Most affecting is the story of Allison (Elena Kampouris), a painfully thin girl wracked by twin, intermarried crucibles: anorexia and being the last female (she thinks) in her social circle who hasn't "hooked up." She visits websites where beauty-obsessed girls provide emotional support to willingly starve themselves -- Google it; they're real -- and fantasizes about the football player she's known since seventh grade. Her body is an unruly burden to her, both her corporeal heft (any) and her wretched virginity.

The stories of some of these kids' parents also float in and out of the foreground. Most notable, though not as interesting as it sounds, is Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt as a married couple whose sex life has turned cold, and they each use the Web to fulfill their needs with strangers.

It's an interesting idea, especially in that it's she craving sexual adventure while he mostly pines for simple intimacy, but their path seems more pathetic than dangerous. Meanwhile, their 15-year-old son has grown impotent after being burned out on hardcore porn.

"Men, Women & Children" gives us an almost entirely bleak view of lust in the 21st century, but that's not its problem. By focusing on too many characters and tales, the film's dark, brave message loses signal strength. There either needed to be a lot more of this movie, or a lot less.

Video review: "The Descendants"

George Clooney is having a spectacular film career, but at the age of 50, he was about due for a shakeup.

For years now he'd been coasting by on roles that exploited his easy, natural charm and the rascally twinkle in his eye. Most of his leading men over the last decade fell into a recognizable pattern: loners who have a way with the ladies, but have difficulty making a commitment, to a relationship or to a cause.

Even his more ambitious roles, such as "Up in the Air," featured some variation on this character recognizing the inevitable dead end of his ways. It is notable that the men he plays are almost invariable single.

That's why "The Descendants," aside from being one of the best films of 2011, was a really bold choice for Clooney and a game-changer for the path of his career.

He plays Matt King, a harried, hectored married father of two daughters whose existence is thrown into turmoil when his life is left comatose in a skiing accident. A detached "backup parent" by his own admission, Matt cannot grasp the level of resentment directed at him by his oldest child, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley), until she reveals that Matt's wife had been cheating on him.

For once, Clooney was not playing the suave guy with all the answers, but the befuddled and very vulnerable man searching desperately for a way to make sense of it all.

Here's hoping that Clooney's career in his 50s will continue down this audacious path -- perhaps mirroring that of Jimmy Stewart, who set aside his aw-shucks persona for his most daring roles ("Vertigo," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," etc.).

Video extras are long on quantity but a little short on quality. The DVD version comes with just three featurettes, one about Clooney's popularity, another about writer/director Alexander Payne and the third on the movie's Hawaiian setting.

Upgrading to Blu-ray essentially brings more of the same, with featurette titles like "Working with Water" and "Waiting for the Light." You do get a handful of deleted scenes, some music videos and a Q&A with Clooney and Payne.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "The Descendants"

It's nearly December, and I have yet to fall in love with a movie this year. There have been plenty I liked, and a handful I really admired and respected. "The Descendants," the new film from Alexander Payne, is among the latter.

But I've yet to experience a film that truly left me gobsmacked, lifted me up and tossed me around and left me shaking. Movie critics take pains to put on a cynical veneer, but we're actually a lot like teenage girls: we're giddily awaiting the crazy whirlwind romance.

I've been for a spin or two in 2011, but I'm still waiting to be swept off my feet.

Payne specializes in serious, cerebral movies that toe the line between pain and laughter. Accepting a Golden Globe for best performance in a drama in "About Schmidt," Jack Nicholson famously quipped, "I thought we made a comedy." Payne makes the sort of movies -- "Election," "Citizen Ruth" -- that don't so much blur the line between drama and comedy as render the distinction unimportant.

He hasn't made a feature film since 2004's "Sideways," but he's back at the top of his game with "The Descendents." It's a career-changing performance by George Clooney, playing a dad -- that in of itself is a seismic shift; he's nearly always been the lothario or lone wolf -- coping with his wife in a coma.

Clooney is open and vulnerable in a way we've never seen before; his character is at a crossroads in life and doesn't know what to do. He has lots of questions and few answers. It's the opposite of the typical male movie star role, in which the guy always looks like he's in control, or at least pretends to be.

Even in "Up in the Air," which has some thematic similarities, Clooney played a charmer who oozes confidence. Here, Clooney he gives the boot to his too-cool-for-school shtick and isn't afraid to look weak.
Matt King is upfront about how he's put his career as a lawyer before his wife and two daughters: "I'm the backup parent, the understudy," he confides in the opening narration.

With his wife in a vegetative state after a boating accident, Matt is left to deal with his 10-year-old daughter Scottie (Amara Miller), who's acting out, and 17-year-old Alexandra (a terrific Shailene Woodley), who's out-and-out rebelling.

Things were a little rocky in Matt's marriage, but it's left to Alexandra to give him the news: his wife was cheating on him. Matt is simply unable to deal with this information. Here's a guy who prides himself on his rationality, and he's left sputtering with chaotic emotions by the betrayal.

Complicating things further is the impending disposition of the family plot in Hawaii that's been the birthright of Matt's clan for 150 years. Many of his wide-ranging cousins are broke, and are clamoring for a piece of the pie if they sell to a developer for big, big money -- we're talking half a billion here, folks.

Did I mention the movie is set in Hawaii? Payne's films tend to be very evocative of a specific place, and "The Descendents" is no exception. There are gorgeous shots of the island landscape, of course, but it's more about capturing the laid-back atmosphere. From the way people instinctively remove their shoes before entering a house to the groovy, free-hugging vibe most of the natives espouse, Payne gives the film a sun-kissed, exotic authenticity.

A few other supporting characters turn up. Alexandra's friend Sid (Nick Krause) is part stoner hanger-on, part boyfriend who says outrageously offensive things but somehow becomes the glue that holds their frayed bonds together. Robert Forster has a blunt, caustic turn as Matt's father-in-law, who does not hold his tongue or his fists when provoked.

Written by Payne, Jim Rash and Nat Faxon, based on the book by Kaui Hart Hemmings, "The Descendants has a smart script that's well executed by all involved, especially Clooney and Payne. I really, really, really like this movie a lot. Love will have to wait.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Love and Other Drugs"

Here's a fairly conventional romantic drama that does a fantastic job of showing off the charms of two very attractive performers, Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal. It's almost a throwback to an old-fashioned type of movie-making in which stars were stars, and it was the job of the director, screenwriter and crew to make them look as good as possible.

"Love and Other Drugs" is set in the late 1990s when Viagra first hit the market, and Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randall, the salesman who was born to hock it. Good-looking and with a rogue-ish charm that he uses to great effect, Jamie has a twinkly smile that melts the heart of the orneriest receptionist guarding access to the doctors he needs to pitch.

Jamie comes from a family of physicians (George Segal and the late Jill Clayburgh play the parents) but was a med school washout. Even his slovenly younger brother Josh (Josh Gad) is a dot-com millionaire.

He's eager to please -- "I'm very trainable" is his pet phrase -- and hides his self-loathing behind a charismatic veneer built on can-do ambition.

Jamie's not above playing dirty. A Pfizer man, he dumps the drug samples from his chief competitor from Lily (Gabriel Macht) into the dumpster, and bribes an influential doc (Hank Azaria) to let him tag along on patient rounds, posing as an intern.

There he meets Maggie Murdock (Hathaway), a waitress with Parkinson's and an attitude. After baring her breast during the exam, she clocks Jamie in the head upon learning he's a pharmaceutical rep.

In classic meet-cute form, in moments he transforms her anger into admiration for his magnetism. Soon they're in bed, but Maggie lays out the rules: Just empty sex, no relationship. I don't think I have to tell you this rule gets shattered.

Director Edward Zwick, who co-wrote the script with Charles Randolph and Marshall Herskovitz, is better known for testosterone-laden flicks with a martial bent ("Courage Under Fire," "Glory"). His touch is light and sure, and he knows how to give Hathaway and Gyllenhaal that extra bit of star sparkle.

Maggie's disease, which is merely a reason for them to meet initially, takes on more weight as the narrative adopts an increasingly somber tone. The similarity to "Love Story" -- about a young cad who grows up when his lady has a life-changing illness -- is more than passing.

They're a solid pair of performances, as the actors show us layers to their characters we might not have initially guessed at.

They're also revealing in another way -- as in both actors show off an astonishing amount of skin. I can't remember the last time I saw two mainstream stars partaking in this much nudity.

The supporting performances are tidy and worthwhile. Oliver Platt plays Jamie's senior partner, who's hoping to ride his coattails to a spot in the Chicago office. Judy Greer is a slightly awkward receptionist who falls prey to Jamie's charms.

Azaria gets one nice scene where the doctor laments dealing with HMOs, drug companies and litigious lawyers instead of just making people's lives a little better.

Gad is the go-to man for comic relief, moving in with Jamie after his own marriage fails. Although, as Jamie himself finally thinks to ask, why does a multi-millionaire need to shack up with his brother?

"Love and Other Drugs" is sweet, funny, sad and occasionally even moves us a little. Despite the title, it doesn't really have anything insightful to say about drug companies making a profit by having doctors pump us full of medicine that may not even help us very much.

Call this movie a pleasant little placebo -- it may not make the world a better place, but it tastes good going down.

3 stars out of four