Movie Reviews: Body of War, Four Minutes, Shotgun

GO  DARE NOT WALK ALONE The more things change, the more they stay the same for disenfranchised African-Americans in the historic Florida city of St. Augustine. At least that’s the argument persuasively, if haphazardly, put forth by director Jeremy Dean’s documentary Dare Not Walk Alone, which casts one eye back to the city’s not-insignificant role in the 1960s Civil Rights movement while keeping the other fixed on the communities of local blacks still living in virtual Third World poverty. Inelegantly made and sometimes awkward in its transitions between the two eras, Dean’s film nonetheless packs a punch, thanks to vivid archival footage from this lesser-known (compared to Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham) hotbed of Southern racial unrest, but also to its clear-eyed look at the adversaries of Martin Luther King Jr.’s utopian “dream.” Interviewed in 2005, octogenarian motel owner James Brock (whose Monson Motor Lodge became a locus of pro- and anti-segregation demonstrations) refers to his old adversary Dr. King as “a fancy manipulator” and shows little contrition about having once poured acid into a swimming pool filled with black youths. Meanwhile, Dean notes the lack of so much as a single black officer in St. Augustine’s police and fire departments. Serendipitously arriving in theaters just as the nation’s first serious African-American presidential candidate has a major-party nomination in his sights, Dare Not Walk Alone reminds us that, for far too many Americans of color, “free at last” has meant trading one sociological prison for another. (Grande 4-Plex) (Scott Foundas)

DEAL Director and co-writer Gil Cates Jr.’s poker drama shuffles through the usual sports-movie and coming-of-age clichés; its derivativeness is less problematic than its lethargy. Cocky Alex (Bret Harrison) is being pushed into law school, but his passion is cards, specifically the big paydays for Texas Hold’em. Intrigued by this talented, undisciplined phenom, former world-class player Tommy Vinson (Burt Reynolds) takes Alex under his wing. When you’re working with clearly conventional material, it helps to attack it from a cockeyed angle or at least adopt a gritty, lived-in urgency, but Deal is fatally earnest: It honestly believes it’s the first poker film to have a mentor character tell his young protégé that success in cards is similar to success in life. No amount of whipping camera movements and real-life pros like Chris Moneymaker can generate tension in the film’s myriad poker matches since Cates displays little interest in understanding the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of this milieu. As the arrogant upstart, Harrison is largely a twit, leaving Reynolds to supply the B-movie integrity Deal otherwise lacks. While all those around him strain for gravitas, his hangdog expression is almost noble, the embodiment of playing the cards you’re dealt. (Selected theaters) (Tim Grierson)

DECEPTION Lonely is the life of the mogul. The long hours and hectic schedule make dating a headache, but who needs romance when you have the services of an anonymous sex club at your disposal? Like Rideshare with benefits, the “list” around which Deception centers is a phone directory of stock-market power players who make anonymous dates with each other to satisfy their carnal appetites. What could be better than a system that streamlines sex the way the Blackberry streamlined communication? As one female participant explains, the list offers “intimacy without intricacy.” Smug and sculpted Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) is the charismatic lawyer who inducts a meek auditor (Ewan MacGregor) into this secret society; when the auditor falls for one of its mysterious beauties (Michelle Williams), an elaborate con begins to unravel. Director Marcel Lagenegger is known for his sleek, stylish television ads, and his feature film debut has the same feel as one of his spots for Toyota or Mercedes. Cinematographer Dante Spinotti (Heat, The Insider) paints a nighttime metropolis reflected in inky glass and diffused beams of color; this vision of Gotham is as fastidious as the cockpit of a BMW. But rather than sell luxury sedans, Deception offers a fantasy even big money can’t buy — Wall Street as a cross between a James Bond adventure and a Victoria’s Secret spread. (Citywide) (Sam Sweet)

GO  FOUR MINUTES Four Minutes won two Lola Awards — the German equivalent of the Oscar — last year, including one for Best Picture, which should tell you something about how far removed from Hollywood the Deutsche Filmakademie is. This is no Titanic, or even a Crash: It’s a blood-on-the-keys piano psychodrama set in a women’s prison, peppered with lesbian overtones and unsettling flashbacks. If watching tender body parts smashed against panes of glass and set on fire makes you queasy, stay away. If Nazi allusions and yearnings make you uncomfortable, stay far away. Jenny (played by the brilliantly repulsive Hannah Herzsprung) is a sullen, stony-eyed young killer with remarkable musical talent. Traude (Monica Bleibtreu) is an ancient piano teacher who haunts the prison hoping to atone for a 50-year-old misdeed — and is determined to take Jenny on as a student and groom her for an upcoming competition, even after the girl beats a guard into bloody submission against a baby grand. Although the tone of the film drifts precariously toward the self-serious, writer-director Chris Kraus redeems himself with snatches of dark jailhouse humor and a quiet attentiveness to minute gradations of human feeling. The milieu is predictably drab, but the relationship between the two women is as poignant as the Schubert impromptu to which it unfolds. (Music Hall) (Julia Wallace)