THE BOUNTY HUNTER You've followed their packaged romance in the supermarket checkout Christine Baranski — now see the movie. Jennifer Aniston's hair plays a New York Daily News crime reporter who stumbles onto corruption at the precinct house. Gerard Butler's scowl plays her ex, a former policeman now working as a bounty hunter. For reasons that don't matter, she misses a court date, and he pursues her — for the $5,000 reward, he says, not love — to Atlantic City. Also in pursuit are a dirty cop, a couple of thugs dispatched by Butler's bookie and Aniston's colleague (Jason Sudeikis), who has a crush on her, plus an even deeper love for pastel V-neck sweater vests. Produced by the team behind Sweet Home Alabama, The Bounty Hunter embraces every stereotype about bickering, mismatched couples: He's the slovenly lout with a bruised heart; she's the Type-A career woman, wearing the skimpiest outfit and highest heels in the newsroom — yet something's missing from her life. That he has to arrest her for them to confront their feelings isn't a bad screwball premise, but the script has all the spunk of Ikea-bookcase assembly instructions. The Bounty Hunter is a no less flimsy a product (though if you removed the two stars — with zero chemistry between them — matters would be greatly improved. Besides Sudeikis, there are small, enjoyable bits from Jeff Garlin, Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Christine Baranski). On the soundtrack, Jerry Reed sings "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)." Viewers will know exactly the same feeling. (Brian Miller) (Citywide)
CITY ISLAND Everyone in the Rizzo family has something to hide: Paterfamilias Vince (Andy Garcia) works as a corrections officer but sneaks off for acting lessons; legal-secretary matriarch Joyce (Julianna Margulies) makes out with Tony (Steven Strait), the ex-con Vince has invited to live with them in the Bronx fishing village of the film's title; daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Andy's kid) lost her college scholarship and now strips; and teen Vince Jr. (Afterschool's Ezra Miller) chases chubbies. The secrets and lies overstuff the plot — a thread involving Vince and a fellow thesp hopeful played by Emily Mortimer is especially superfluous — and sets up too many misunderstandings played for laughs, culminating in the usual tidy conclusion of forgiveness and acceptance. But writer-director Raymond De Felitta (2000's Two Family House) keeps his comedy of dysfunction afloat with sharp specifics: "I went to Oneonta," Joyce protests at the dinner table after Vince warns his kids of the dead-end future of those who are B.A.-less, like Mom and Dad. An affectionate portrait of a lower-middle-class, outer-borough clan, City Island works best as an actor's showcase, with Margulies' aggrieved, simmering wife the standout. Though his accent is inconsistent, Garcia fully explores the corrosive consequences of having to conceal a dog-eared copy of An Actor Prepares in the bathroom. (Melissa Anderson) (Citywide)
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID With stick figures and crisply funny journal entries, Jeff Kinney's cartoon series breathed fresh life into pre-teen lit's most exhausted trope — the twisted tribal etiquette of middle school. Screenwriters Jackie and Jeff Filgo's respect for Kinney's sharply observant dialogue is the chief virtue of this fairly capable screen version. But the transition to live action is, stylistically, a trip to the ordinary in the hands of director Thor Freudenthal (though it's still a step up from his excruciating Hotel for Dogs). For Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon), a flawed wiseguy cursed with small stature and an inflated view of his own gifts, middle school is an endless obstacle race against his shortcomings, as well as big bullies, more evolved girls, and stray boogers, not to mention a slice of cootie-ridden cheese festering in the schoolyard. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is sweet and funny at either end, but in between, it sags with endless repetition of gross bodily functions and Greg's torment at the hands of larger, angrier or more popular kids — in that order. Robert Capron is pure joy as the fat best friend who knows who he is, enjoys life and practices loyalty by instinct. (Ella Taylor) (Citywide)
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Essentially a locked-room mystery with lashings of gore and sexual brutality, Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo disguised the simplicity of its narrative by embedding it within an almost Balzacian depiction of Swedish society, warts and all (but mainly warts). Niels Arden Oplev's adaptation relies more on the mystery but has two complex, compelling leads driving its story. Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist), a disgraced investigative journalist, is asked by industrialist Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to investigate the disappearance of his niece from a family reunion 40 years ago. A finite number of suspects emerges, mostly members of Vanger's hugely dysfunctional dynasty: aged Swedish Nazis, venal, old aunts, creepy brothers and cousins. Blomqvist teams with Lisbeth Salander, who is the true star of Larsson's books, a state-raised, quasi-autistic computer hacker with a horrifying past and an alarmingly black-and-white sense of morality. Played by Noomi Rapace — the real discovery here — Salander is a walking time bomb of injuries and resentments. Together they disinter the Vanger family's grotesque secrets, while somebody — a still-active serial sex-murderer, perhaps? — uses increasingly violent methods to try to stop them. An elegant contraction of the novel, discarding Blomqvist's sexual bravado and thus saving Larsson from his own worst tendencies, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo may be a shallower experience than the book, but it has a headlong velocity all its own. Catch it before the inevitable U.S. remake. (John Patterson) (Landmark, Playhouse, Town Center)
