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FILMS ARE GRADED BY CITY PAPER CRITICS A-F. STEVE DIETL
A.C.O.D
✚ NEW A.C.O.D. | CThe same question arises every time another television season rolls around, full of promising, star-studded new shows: How did all of this talent get corralled into creating something so mediocre? TV veteran Stu Zicherman fails to shake some of the small screen’s worst habits in his debut feature film as writer/director. The clumsy acronym of the title stands for “Adult Children Of Divorce,” and Zicherman draws on his own experiences as a member of the first generation for whom divided homes were the rule and not the exception. Adam Scott stars as Carter, a seemingly well-adjusted restaurateur who has spent much of his life as the go-between for his parents. He’s drafted to make a truce between them for the duration of younger brother Clark Duke’s wedding, which leads to the breakdown of his carefully controlled life. Despite the strong cast — Jane Lynch as Carter’s childhood therapist, who senses a best-seller in his breakdown; Scott’s Parks and Rec co-star Amy Poehler as his father’s second wife; and especially Richard Jenkins and Catherine O’Hara as his parents — laughs are middling at best, and Zicherman repeatedly falls back on indie-rock-scored montages as a substitute for evoking real emotions. Littered with subplots and half-explored characters, A.C.O.D. feels like nothing more than the pilot for a sitcom that is only good enough to last if it follows a better show. —Shaun Brady (Ritz at the Bourse)
CARRIE Read Shaun Brady’s review at citypaper.net/movies. (Wide release)
ESCAPE PLAN Read Drew Lazor’s review at citypaper.net/movies. (Wide release)
THE FIFTH ESTATE See Sam Adams’ review on p. 24. (Ritz Five)
✚ CONTINUING CAPTAIN PHILLIPS | C+ With his rootless camera and manic editing style, Paul Greengrass turns the true story of a cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates into a tense, claustrophobic thriller. What may be surprising is that the film is at once unambitious, stubbornly focusing on Tom Hanks’ noble, stoic captain to the detriment of the remainder of his faceless crew; and defensively apologetic, preemptively defusing racial tensions by drawing condescending parallels between the pirates’ third-world plight and the struggles of their working class first-world counterparts.Without falling back on heavy-handed pronouncements about globalization and the speed of progress, the Danish film A Hijacking told a similar story much more compellingly, allowing suspense to permeate scenes of endless waiting, both at sea and in corporate boardrooms. Greengrass, in a headlong rush toward Navy SEAL heroics, simply doesn’t trust his audience enough to allow his frenetic camera to sit still for a moment. —SB (Wide release)
MACHETE KILLS | B
STARTS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18
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