Movie Reviews: Black Dynamite, The Stepfather, Law Abiding Citizen

GO  EATING OUT 3: ALL YOU CAN EAT While I can’t claim prior familiarity with the Eating Out series of gay-themed comedies, given that, on the evidence of its third entry, the cycle seems to comprise in equal measure foul-mouthed humor and good-natured coupling, I may yet be a convert. Charting the romantic misadventures of a pasty-faced twig who moves to L.A. and instantly falls hard for the muscle-bound stud he meets at the (ha!) Larry Craig LGBT Center, Glenn Gaylord’s film abounds in hammy acting, farcical setups and outrageous lines like, “Children are just abortions that eat,” delivered with such over-the-top zeal that they’re far funnier than they have any right to be. Disgusted with what he views as the sex-obsessed gay community, Casey (Daniel Skelton) trades on old-fashioned notions of romance (i.e., he doesn’t fuck on the first date). Who can blame him? Until the inevitable coupling that constitutes its ending, the film really does portray the queer scene as one giant meat market, a metaphor made literal in the climactic “male sale” benefit auction. Still, for all the ripped flesh on display, Gaylord heartily endorses the moral that “it takes a lot more than a gym and some cucumbers to make someone gorgeous.” (Sunset 5) (Andrew Schenker)

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN The movie wastes no time: Before the opening credits, a man watches two home invaders slaughter his wife and daughter — and we don’t even know their names. And then: Deals are cut, the murderer walks while his less culpable accomplice is sentenced to death, and the dad wonders, “But what about justice?” And then: A decade passes, dad has seen a Saw or two, and it’s retribution time. Everyone must pay, even the innocent. So much for our sympathy for the leading man, who happens to be Gerard Butler in yet another questionable role. Director F. Gary Gray and writer Kurt Wimmer peddle cheap, graphic Z-grade revenge thrills dressed up as Knowing Sociopolitical Commentary — as in, the justice system’s rotten, so let’s blow up, then gut, then roast again the whole sumbitch and start from scratch. Jamie Foxx’s prosecutor (smug, a slow learner) gets a front-row seat to the explosion, as Butler’s Clyde Shelton goes behind bars and into solitary confinement, from where, somehow, he is capable of inflicting enough damage and carnage to terrorize the whole of Philadelphia. Clyde won’t stop speechifying about doing bad things in the name of the greater good. If the filmmakers meant a word of it, they’d quit making films and do something more useful. Saw with a conscience is not what the world needs. (Citywide) (Robert Wilonsky)

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU Billed as a “collective feature film,” New York, I Love You is the second in the “Cities of Love” series, an idea that has so far proved better in theory than execution. As with its predecessor, Paris je t’aime, there are hits and misses. Producer Emmanuel Benbihy decreed that each of the 11 segments be set in a specific neighborhood, but only a few manage to capture the spirit of their surroundings. The duds, like Jiang Wen’s pickpocket three-way with Hayden Christensen, Andy Garcia and Rachel Bilson, and Mira Nair’s corny collision between Natalie Portman and Irrfan Khan, have a canned, flattened quality that drags the collective down. Orlando Bloom has some fun with the lonely freelance life, greasing up to play a composer-for-hire with an impossible client, and Ethan Hawke and Maggie Q reimagine the dynamic of the street-corner pick-up. But the most effective entries, by Allen Hughes (Bradley Cooper and Drea de Matteo navigate their found chemistry), Fatih Akin (Ugur Yücel and Shu Qi reach out but can’t quite connect), and Joshua Marston (Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman shuffle off to Coney Island), bring both bitter and sweet to their snapshots of the city’s most cherished and elusive quality: intimacy. (Selected theaters) (M.O.)

OPA! In life, finding true love is often dependent on the mysteries of fate, but in the movies it’s usually just the work of dull formula. In the tourist-trap romance Opa!, all-business Chicago archaeologist Eric (Matthew Modine, aging quite nicely) travels to the picturesque Greek island of Patmos in pursuit of a legendary cup that belonged to St. John. There, he is swept away by the beautiful Katerina (Agni Scott), a local restaurateur, single mother and all-around free spirit. Everything seems to be progressing nicely until romantic complications ensue: The coveted cup turns out to be buried beneath her beloved eatery. For a while, the laid-back rapport between Modine and Scott is breezy and enjoyable — it’s hard to resist attractive people smiling at each other convincingly — but you soon realize that director Udayan Prasad is really going to overdo the enchanting-getaway shtick. Opa!’s soundtrack is wall-to-wall generic Greek folk music — you’ll be forgiven if you start fantasizing about breaking a bouzouki — and if it’s still not entirely clear where the film is set, there’s an annoyingly precious Greek chorus to riff on the action. Even our leads eventually seem beaten down by the cutesiness, their initial spark smothered by conventionality. For the record, your reviewer did correctly guess just about everything that transpired in Opa!, the only surprise being that the climactic finale hinges on a PowerPoint presentation. It’s as romantic as it sounds. (Mann Chinese 6; Beverly Center) (Tim Grierson)