filmland / By Charlie Myers

Summer Is Dead

Three solid film openings signal an end to moron season

(Sept. 4, 2008)  Another Asian remake hits the local screens on Friday, Sept. 5, but this time Thai directors Oxide and Danny Pang remake their own film Bangkok Dangerous. The film stars Nicolas Cage as a hit man whose hard edge is threatened by his feelings for a local shopgirl and doubts about his assignment. Rated R for violence, language and some sexuality. 100m. At the Broadway and Mill Creek.

On a different note, Gonzo: The Life and work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is a documentary written (from Thompson’s writings) and directed by Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) that focuses primarily on the journalist’s life between 1965 and 1975. Johnny Depp narrates. Rated R for drug and sexual content, language and some nudity. 118m. At the Minor.

GALLERY >

Another documentary, American Teen, takes a look at the social cliques at a Warsaw, Ind., high school. Writer/director Nanette Burstein helpfully labels the standard high school types, presumably for the geezer who mistakenly wanders into the film, such as the princess, jock, geek, rebel, etc. that commonly populate teen films. Rated PG-13 for some strong language, sexual material, some drinking and brief smoking-all involving teens. 95m. At The Movies.

Reviews

TRAITOR: It’s always good to be pleasantly surprised by a genre film. In the case of Traitor, firmly in the political thriller mode, the film proved to be a nicely accomplished, low-key thriller whose politics were more sophisticated than is traditional for a Hollywood film. Also surprising is that the film features a devout Muslim as its protagonist.

The reliable Don Cheadle is Samir Horn, who has an American mother and a Sudanese father. He is also a former Army Special Forces member, and he finds himself trapped between the worlds of Middle Eastern extremists, American blind patriotism and his faith. In fact, one of the interesting aspects of the film is the question of not just who is a traitor, but what world(s) Samir might have to betray in the course of his activities.

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