Video review: "The Best of Enemies"

Sometimes a film works because of the performances more than the story. There’s nothing unpredictable about “The Best of Enemies,” a feel-good drama about the real-life episode in which a KKK leader and a black activist joined forces to abolish segregation in their community.

We know from the very start that C.P. Ellis will eventually recant his racist views and befriend Ann Atwater, a loud-and-proud African-American leader. It’s practically written in stone.

And yet, because these roles are occupied by Sam Rockwell and Taraji P. Henson, the result is a compelling movie that carries us through the inevitability of its plot.

The story opens in 1971 Durham, where blacks and whites still live very much apart. But when the “black” school is severely damaged requiring a months-long closure, an imbroglio begins after a judge punts on the decision to merge the schools. The result is a “charrette,” an old-fashioned council of community members who will listen to the evidence and vote on defacto desegregation.

Atwater is an obvious pick to lead the pro-integration side. Ellis is selected by the white power-holders to represent their stake and ensure that the vote goes down. The two are elected co-chairs, and immediately set out to clash.

But then they gradually get a chance to get to know the person behind the stereotype, and hostility gives way to growing respect, and even friendship. Despite his overt bigotry, Ellis is depicted as a man devoted to his family and community – or at least “his” half of it.

I just enjoyed watching Henson and Rockwell inhabit these characters. You won’t be surprised, but you may find yourself engaging with “The Best of Enemies.”

Bonus features are modest, and are limited to three documentary shorts: “Make a Connection,” “Ann Atwater” and “An Unlikely Friendship.”

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Review: "The Best of Enemies"

Hoo boy. The people who went after "Green Book" for not being sufficiently "woke" are going to lose their collective gourd over "The Best of Enemies."

The basic gist is a racist white dude overcomes his upbringing with the help of a black character he befriends, written and directed by a white guy based on a book by a white guy. And the white star is Sam Rockwell, who ate backlash over winning an Oscar for playing another racist character who takes steps toward redemption in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

Man the brigades!

Or, actually take the film on its own merits, which speak to a solid if unspectacular historical drama about the little nudges and shakes that form the earthquakes resulting in societal change.

This true story set in Durham, North Carolina in 1971 relates the tale of a KKK leader and a black civil rights activist who became unlikely friends. They are clashing as part of a broader effort to decide if the black and white elementary schools should be integrated after the black school was severely damaged by fire.

This is the sort of movie where you sit down in your seat knowing exactly what's going to happen every step of the way. And yet because Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell are such gifted performers, and writer/director Robin Bissell unspools the story with sensitivity and emotional heft, every scene feels unpracticed and fresh.

Henson is Ann Atwater, a loud, big (helped with ample padding) woman who know how to get the black community motivated and out to support causes. But she's continually shot down by the Durham city council, led by thick-necked, white-suited genteel cracker types (like Bruce McGill).

"I better see your face looking black and angry," she warns one of her people who says she's too busy to show up.

The white politicians and bureaucrats keep chummy but arm's-length ties to the local Klan, led by C.P. Ellis (Rockwell). He runs a gas station that black folks know to avoid. He's uneducated and stubborn, but has a certain genuineness and charisma about him, which led him to being elected president -- or wizard, or cyclops, or whatever the hell the KKK calls them.

A judge doesn't want to own the decision of whether to integrate the schools, so Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay), a black lawyer from "up north" (meaning northern North Carolina) is brought in to lead a charrette. This is an old-school meeting of the minds, which lasts two weeks, with half the council black and the other half white, and a two-thirds majority is needed to pass anything.

C.P. and Ann are elected co-chairs, and they go about the usual dance of hating each other and then getting to know one another. C.P. is committed to his wife (Ann Heche) and four kids, including a boy who's institutionalized with severe mental and physical challenges. You can take a wild guess if Ann winds up helping him out with his boy's situation.

Meanwhile, his Klan buddies (Wes Bentley chief among them) are leaning on C.P. to deliver a no vote, as well as individual white members of the charratte in the usual crackers-with-shotguns-and-friends ways.

Curiously, although we delve fairly deeply into C.P.'s background and mind, we never really learn much else about Ann other than her involvement in civil causes.

That's a failing of the script, but it also boasts lots of other little lovely moments. Like the white city council member who happens to turn his chair away whenever Ann is talking. Or the dumbstruck look on Ann's teen daughter's face when she C.J. is introduced to her. And the authentic, if colossally misguided, way in which C.J. initially believes the Klan is all about sticking up for one another.

"The Best of Enemies" is the sort of old-fashioned movie-making that's falling out of style now. That's a shame, but mostly for the people who stay away from a film about hatred giving way to mutual regard and, eventually, friendship.

Just don't talk about which actor is the lead and which the supporting, though.

Video review: "Ralph Breaks the Internet"

First off: Why isn’t it “Ralph Wrecks the Internet?” You’d think a simple callback to the last Disney animated film would be an obvious choice, as we’re bringing back arcade game villain-turned-huggable-hero Ralph for another adventure.

Maybe some wonk in the marketing department said “breaks” would test better. Perhaps if they’d concentrated on coming up with a little more coherent narrative, this wouldn’t have been a mildly disappointing sequel.

The idea here is that Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) and tiny tot racing demon Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) find themselves leaving their staid little arcade for a trip into the wild, wild internet. It seems the wheel o Vanellope’s game has broken and if they don’t find a replacement one on eBay, she’s going to get permanently unplugged.

Their adventures are fun and colorful, at least at first. All the various Web power players -- Google, SnapChat, etc. -- are represented as their own power hubs that human avatars come to for information and entertainment. They get a little help from one of those pop-up ad barkers, and also from some (initially mean) denizens of an online racing game.

The “Ralph” sequel puts the sidekick character behind the wheel, as it’s really more Vanellope’s story than Ralph’s. The theme is about how people constantly grow and evolve, and sometimes that can mean trouble for their relationships. In this case, Vanellope has grown tired of playing the same game over and over, while Ralph is a creature of habit.

It’s kind of the same thing they did with “Cars 2” by putting Mater to the front -- the difference being it wasn’t the “Lightning McQueen” franchise.

What’s in a name? Apparently, a lot.

Bonus features are quite good, including a hefty making-of documentary. My favorite bonus is “Surfing for Easter Eggs,” which lets you see all the little in-jokes and pop culture references spread heavily throughout the movie.

There are also five deleted scenes, music videos, and features on the music and pretend viral videos.

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Review: "What Men Want"

I’m not sure if you’d dub “What Men Want” a sequel, a remake or a reboot of “What Women Want” from nearly 20 years ago. Let’s call it a spiritual inheritor.

It’s about a successful, not-particularly-nice person who gets conked on the head and finds themselves able to hear the thoughts of the opposite sex, which leads to lots of zany hijinks but also helps them become a better person.

The first film was a huge hit but wasn’t well-liked by critics, and I suspect this one won’t be, either. But it’s got heart, laughs and more than a little sass.

Taraji P. Henson plays Ali, a hard-charging sports agent at the powerhouse Atlanta firm of SWM. Anticipating being named partner, she leases a Porsche to flaunt her success. (Like anyone who’s spent time in The ATL, I chuckled at the scene showing her driving downtown at rush hour with absolutely zero traffic. Talk about Hollywood fantasies!)

But she doesn’t get the gig, as she’s again passed over in favor of some lunkhead young dude. It’s a boys’ club, and they’ll let her play but not take home the trophy.

“You do great in your lane, so why don’t you stay in your lane?” her smarmy boss (Brian Bosworth) says.

As she’s raging against the injustices of her environment, we also learn that Ali is not a very well-rounded person. She treats her assistant, adorable gay dweeb Brandon (Josh Brener), like dirt. When she seduces a gorgeous bartender named Will (Aldis Hodge), we even learn that she’s pretty lousy in bed.

Redemption lies in the person of Jamal Barry (Shane Paul McGhie), who will soon be the #1 NBA pick for the hometown Hawks. Land Jamal, Ali’s boss offers, and she’ll get her prize. But that also means negotiating around Jamal’s unbalanced control-freak father, Joe “Dolla” Barry, played by Tracy Morgan in a portrayal that is totally not a sendup of LaVar Ball.

The cast is rounded out by Jason Jones and Max Greenfield as adversarial fellow agents; Tamala Jones, Phoebe Robinson and Wendi McLendon-Covey as Ali’s lady crew; Pete Davidson as a donut-pushing office denizen; Erykah Badu as Sister, the kooky psychic/weed dealer who gives Ali the tea that sparks her newfound power; and various sports celebrity cameos by the likes of Lisa Leslie, Shaquille O’Neal, Grant Hill, Karl-Anthony Towns and Mark Cuban.

Richard Roundtree also turns up in a nice, sensitive role as Ali’s patient father.

There’s a lot of things to like about “What Men Want.” Henson oozes a sort of anxious charisma playing a woman who’s never slowed down enough to consider whether she’s making a positive impact on those around her. There’s some good snaps in the dialogue, and a crazy wedding scene that looks like something out of a reality show meltdown.

The movie isn’t terribly insightful about the differences between the genders. And the mostly-male creative team strives mightily to clean up men’s thoughts from the cesspool I’d guess they’d really be.

My guess is what men want most is for women to never find out just how gross we are on the inside.

Review: "Ralph Breaks the Internet"

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” has more brains than heart. The filmmakers seem to have thought very carefully through the implications of taking throwback arcade game villain (now reformed) Wreck-It Ralph and shooting him into the wild world of the Internet.

It’s represented as a vast, science fiction-y cityscape where every major Internet player has their own building hub -- Google, eBay, SnapChat, etc. People are represented by little blocky icons as they steer through the landscape. Those annoying pop-up ads are street barkers holding up signs imploring folks to click. Likes are hearts, which can translate into actual money. And so on.

(There’s no hint of a sleazier neighborhood, fleshy pursuits taking up an astonishing portion of the real digital domain. But hey, it’s a Disney animated flick.)

I wish the movie had given as much care to its emotional navigation. If the message of “Wreck-It Ralph” was to not put people in the little boxes society assigns them, then the sequel is a mushier muddle about setting someone free if you really love them, or something.

The story picks up six years later, the same amount of time that’s passed between movies. Ralph (John C. Reilly) and pint-sized racer Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) are still fast friends, spending virtually all their downtime when their arcade is closed sloshing root beers and having adventures in various other games. During the daytime they go to “work,” aka starring as characters in their own games.

In the last movie, Vanellope’s game, “Sugar Rush,” was the hot new thing, but time saps everyone’s glow. Vanellope is getting a little tired of winning all the time on the same old tracks. She’s craving the “not knowing what comes next feeling,” while Ralph is content with the same-old, same-old.

When the steering wheel on her game snaps off, the kindly old arcade owner doesn’t have the cash to buy a new one off eBay. So Ralph and Vanellope take a ride on the wifi he recently installed.

Finding out they need money to buy the wheel, they at first stumble upon the idea of acquiring rare items in online games to sell. They invade a post-apocalyptic game called Death Race, and encounter Shank (Gal Gadot), the smooth leader of a road gang whose car they’re supposed to steal. That doesn’t work out, but leads to the idea of making goofy videos starring Ralph to splash all over a YouTube clone with their head algorithm, Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), lending advice.

Things go from there. The movie hits a torpor around the middle, though it picks up soon enough.

By far the most interesting stuff is when Disney pokes fun at itself, represented as a chaotic mishmash of its classic cartoons and IPs it’s acquired in recent years: the Muppets, Marvel Comics, Star Wars. It’s the sort of thing you’ll want to freeze-frame when it comes out on video so you can catch all the Easter Eggs and inside jokes.

This leads to Vanellope, who’s at least nominally a princess, landing in the quarters of all the Disney princesses -- Snow White, Moana, Rapunzel, Belle, you name it, they’re here. Together they share a freewheeling moment where they trade their stiff gowns for comfy sweats and talk about the foibles of their trade.

There’s the downside, like being expected to wait for a strong man to solve all their problems, but also the bliss of finding your perfect dream song.

They actually bring back most of the original voice actresses to reprise their roles. I loved the self-poking fun of even the other princesses being unable to comprehend the thick Scottish brogue of Merida from “Brave.”

The last act gets very action-oriented and super hero-y, which the kiddies will love but I found a little rote. Still, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is a fun sequel with lots of color and spectacle. It doesn’t quite pass the test of “Did this movie need to exist?” But I don’t mind having it around.

Video review: "Hidden Figures"

Math is at the center of “Hidden Figures,” a historical drama about forgotten African-American women who were pivotal to putting the first Americans into space. “By the numbers,” though, is also an apt description of the predictable plot and characters who seem based more on algorithms than actual people.

Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe play three women who were “computers” for NASA in the early 1960s – at a time when that term referred to someone who was really good at math rather than a machine. Katherine Johnson (Henson) is the standout genius of the bunch, who can see past the numbers into the “deep math” consequences of what they represent.

Monáe plays Mary Jackson, the young upstart of the trio, and Spencer is Dorothy Vaughan, who acts as manager of the computers but doesn’t get the title, pay or respect from her white supervisor (Kirsten Dunst) she deserves. The blacks and whites are kept segregated in different buildings, right down to water fountains and restrooms labeled “colored.”

Kevin Costner plays Al Harrison, the NASA man in charge of the number-crunchers. He finds his all-white-and-male eggheads aren’t up to the task, so Johnson is conscripted to join his team, with predictable tensions from the engineers. (Jim Parsons plays the chief antagonist.)

The actors give a good account of themselves, especially Henson. But it all unfolds so unsurprisingly -- the meek Henson finally having her big hear-me-roar speech; Harrison taking a sledgehammer to the “colored” signs when he realizes racism is hindering scientific progress; Vaughan tackling the newfangled machines from IBM and earning new esteem.

Theodore Melfi, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Allison Schroeder, gives us an interesting and powerful piece of history. But the story spools out in a manner that’s strictly 1-2-3.

Bonus features as good. There’s a feature-length commentary track featuring Melfi and Henson; deleted scenes; a gallery of production stills; a making-of documentary, “It All Adds Up;” plus a featurette on filming on location in Georgia.

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Review: "Think Like a Man"

And here begins a new trend in movie-making: fictional films based not on novels, or even works of nonfiction, but on self-help books. "Think Like a Man" is adapted from a tome of relationship advice aimed at women written by comedian/game show host Steve Harvey. (The movie drops the first part of the book's title, "Act Like a Lady.")

Coming in May: "What to Expect When You're Expecting," advice for pregnant women turned into an ensemble comedy about a bunch of horndog daddies and their respective mama wannabes.

(What's next -- "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" turned into an action/thriller? "Be Proactive and light that motha up!!")

"Think Like a Man" is pleasant enough, with a gorgeous-looking cast of would-be couples clashing and romancing. There are lots of funny throwaway lines, one or two misty moments to bring a tear to the eye, and some enjoyable buddy-buddy scenes.

It doesn't really add up to much, since the characters are (literally) divided up into stereotypes: The Player, The Mama's Boy, The Dreamer, etc. With such a large cast -- six guys, four gals plus supporting players -- it's impossible to flesh any one of them out into three dimensions ... or sometimes even two.

Perhaps the one who comes closest is Taraji P. Henson as Lauren, a corporate executive who can feel her biological clock ticking, but refuses to settle for anyone less than her equal. To her, that means a power player who makes six figures and drives a car worth more than the average U.S. house.

"All this waiting for better, it's making you bitter," a friend observes.

Eventually Lauren falls for Dominic (Michael Ealy), a starving restaurant worker who dreams of becoming a chef. Of course, when she first meets him he's valet parking a $155,000 sports car, so it's a matter of time before the truth butts in. Lauren finds herself genuinely falling for him, and decides to fudge on her high standards.

On the other end of the spectrum are Zeke (Romany Malco) and Mya (Meagan Good), two players who try to see if they can make a go of a real relationship. Mya is trying out Harvey's 90-Day Benefits Rule -- aka, Zeke has to stick around for nearly three months before he gets "the cookie."

Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara) is a guy stuck in a college time warp, still dating his girlfriend Kristen (Gabrielle Union) after nine years and not any closer to putting a ring on it. Michael (Terrence Jenkins hasn't cut the apron strings from his mother, and single mom Candace (Regina Hall) insists that she be the #1 woman in his life.

The cast is rounded out by Bennett (Gary Owen), the happily married guy, and Cedric (Kevin Hart), the even happier recently divorced guy -- or so he tells himself. Hart's a pint-sized comedic pistol, and gets many of the movies best lines.

Director Tim Story broke out with "Barbershop," so it's no surprise that the movie's best scenes are the ones involving the sextet of guys hanging out, cracking on each other mercilessly and talking about women. Screenwriters Keith Merryman and David A. Newman give the dialogue a light, improvisational feel.

It's a fun group to hang out with, and even includes a couple of white guys in a majority black cast. The black dudes occasionally make jokes about the white dudes, who return fire happily, but there's a circle of trust and warmth there.

The filmmakers make a curious choice of including author Harvey for awhile, who pops onto the screen spouting lines from his book. It does make the movie seem more like a commercial for the book, but also acts as a clever framing device. Then Harvey just disappears about halfway through.

They should've gone for the Full Harvey, or none.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Larry Crowne"

Here's a movie for adults that's warm and enjoyable, but has brains and ambition. Because it stars two immensely likeable actors, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, you might think it's about two middle-aged people falling for each other. You'd be wrong.

Although "Larry Crowne" takes the form of a romantic comedy-drama, it is less about the intersection of these two characters than the people they discover themselves to be at this moment in their life's trajectory. Their coupling is a byproduct of their respective journeys, not the purpose behind it.

Hanks directs (and produces, and co-wrote with Nia Vardalos) with a soft touch but not a soft head. "Larry Crowne" is full of life lessons, but is clever about it, and flouts its characters' sense of shared community without going all it-takes-a-village muddle-headed.

It's like fancy French toast -- comfort food with a dollop of aspiration.

Hanks plays the title character, a fortysomething guy happily working as a low-level manager at Umart, meaning he wears a bright red T-shirt with his name on it and is called a "team leader." Unfortunately, Larry does not have a college degree -- he joined the Navy out of high school and retired after 20 years as a cook -- so his bosses decide that since he cannot advance any further, they have to let him go. The fact that Larry is a tireless worker who attacks his job with zeal does not matter. Somehow, the Umart folks think they are doing him a favor.

This may sound unbelievably absurd, but the capacity for ridiculousness of group decisions knows no bounds. I know a guy who got a job at a non-profit straight out of college, loved working there and over the course of 20 years earned his way up to the number two position. During some nasty political squabbles, the board approached him about jettisoning the executive director and moving this fellow up to the top spot. Taking a principled stand, he refused the promotion, saying it was not fair to accept a post currently occupied by someone else. After more deliberations, the board decided to keep the person they'd just  been trying to give the boot, and fired him instead. The nature of the collective mind is inherently schizophrenic.

Larry takes it hard, especially when he finds the job market unwelcoming in the extreme. He's divorced but not bitter about it, and owes the bank a pocketful after buying out his ex-wife's half of the house.

So he decides to enroll at East Valley Community College. At the urging of the dean of students, who has more than a little huckster in him, Larry signs up for classes in speech, economics and composition. Master these three skills, he is told, and he can write his ticket.

The econ class is taught by a comically haughty professor (George Takei) who recites the same dry lessons year in and year out, and smiles because each student crammed into his massive classroom are required to buy his book. We never hear about the writing class, so all hope rests with the speech course.

The professor of Speech 217: The Art of Informal Remarks is one Mercedes Tainot (Roberts), who began bordering on burnout a few years ago, and is medium-crispy now. Her greatest hope is that the minimum 10 students will not show up, and she can cancel the class -- which Larry dashes by showing up late. Mercy's first instruction to her students is to care, but she obviously stopped awhile ago.

Mercy takes an anti-shine to Larry at first, thinking he's an old letch using the mid-life college shtick to hit on impressionable young things like Talia, an effervescent lass played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw in one of those performances that grab you and make you go, "More, please."

Truth is, Talia is more of a teacher to Larry than Mercy is, fixing the feng shui at his crowded home and giving his hair and clothes some zip. Mercy is perhaps biased because her husband (Bryan Cranston) really is an old letch, who gave up writing books to blog but really looks at porn all the time.

I have on occasion been accused of being too much of a literalist as a critic, and I will now demonstrate why.

Larry is very specific about being a 20-year military man, meaning he retired in his late 30s, presumably with a pension. Anyone remotely familiar with a career in the armed forces knows about the 20-years-and-out routine. Having known or read about people in this situation, and with a little research and conjecture, I determined Larry's payments from the Navy would be around 30 grand a year, plus free medical. That's not a ton, but should be enough for him to get by in the short run.

It's persnickety, I know, but I needed a line where Larry says something like, "And my Navy pension will barely cover the mortgage." Otherwise, don't introduce the 20-year thing without acknowledging the reality of it.

And on the question of Mercy's horndog husband, it is not really possible for any man to watch porn literally all day long. He could certainly see a lot of it, maybe even have a psychological addiction to it, but there would be spaces where, shall we say, his desires are at least temporarily diminished. It's just the way things work.

Things go on with Larry and Mercy, but I'll leave that for you to discover. They rotate in each others' orbits, with that gravitational pull always there but not shifting the heavens.

"Larry Crowne" is a romantic movie, but it's less about the familiar, tired tropes of cinematic love than the serendipitous passion we find in our lives when our plans end up in pieces on aisle 12.

3.5 stars out of four