Movie Reviews: Enemies of the People, Step-Up 3D, The Other Guys

GO  HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S THE INFERNO Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno is a posthumous psychodrama that, according to film archivist and co-director Serge Bromberg, grew out of a chance encounter in a stalled elevator with Clouzot's widow. Bromberg persuaded her to give him access to a particular holy grail: the surviving 15 hours of rushes and test footage from French director Clouzot's abandoned would-be masterpiece, Inferno. Starring Serge Reggiani and Romy Schneider, Inferno was meant to portray jealousy as a form of mental illness, but the real head case was its director. Clouzot was unable to finish the movie; as both the survivors interviewed and the surviving footage makes clear, the attempt drove him half-mad. Inferno was an ambitious production. Clouzot prepared elaborately color-coded charts tracking his hero's paranoid state. There were three separate camera crews. Columbia Pictures provided an "unlimited budget," much of which was spent on visual experiments involving superimpositions, dappled light patterns, fun-house mirror distortions and color inversion meant to convey a deranged consciousness. But rather than communicating his protagonist's madness, Clouzot appears to be documenting his own. Who knows how these fantastic shots of Schneider lying naked in the path of an onrushing locomotive or covered with glitter and smoking a cigarette in reverse would have played in the finished film? Who cares? For all the irrationality that fueled Clouzot's project, it's reasonable to assume that the finished Inferno would never have been any better than this arrangement of its shards. (J. Hoberman) (Sunset 5)

THE OTHER GUYS After obligatory helicopter views of New York's skyline open Adam McKay's The Other Guys, we're introduced to Danson and Highsmith (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson), a duo of unflappable supercops who keep the city exciting, if not safe, with law enforcement by the Michael Bay book. The Other Guys aren't them. This is the fourth feature collaboration between McKay and Will Ferrell, who make baggy improvisational comedies about utter boobs (Anchorman's Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights' Ricky Bobby) like detectives Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg). Gamble is an emasculated Prius owner transferred from forensic accounting. Loose cannon Hoitz seems to have been partnered with Gamble as punishment — he's been the departmental black sheep since a humiliating incident that earned him the nickname "Yankee Clipper." Laying out its premise, The Other Guys is loose and funny. But as it progresses, the leads are given little to do but trade off one-liners while treading the waters of an increasingly choppy plot. Gamble and Hoitz catch the scent of something big during a routine pickup of a Wall Street hustler (Steve Coogan), and, following the clues, The Other Guys turns more hectic than antic. Somebody didn't pack enough comedy for this long trip, and if there were a computer program that automatically generated generic action scenes after you punch in participating actors' names — and there may well be! — the product would look like The Other Guys' shoot-'em-ups. (Nick Pinkerton) (Citywide)

PATRIK AGE 1.5 Their new suburban house is lovely, the neighbors friendly, the nursery ready — and now all that Göran (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his husband, Sven (Torkel Petersson), need to make their familial dreams come true is an actual child. A letter from Swedish Social Services promises that a baby is on the way, but what arrives at the door instead is Patrik (Thomas Ljungman), a 15-year-old orphan with a criminal record and little tolerance for "homos." The couple doesn't handle the surprise very well, particularly Sven, who gets more loutish by the hour. Writer-director Ella Lemhagen's adaptation of Michael Druker's play begins, rather self-consciously, as a broad comedy, but the tone darkens quickly, as Göran and Sven's relationship unravels under the pressure, leaving Göran to handle the boy, who turns out not to be such a holy terror after all. There aren't many surprises to what follows, but one is never bored, thanks to the innate charms of Skarsgård and young Ljungman, both of whom have such sweetly hopeful smiles that it's hard not to wish them eternal happiness, even as we wait in vain for Lemhagen to throw their characters a few real-world challenges — they do an awful lot of gardening. (Chuck Wilson) (Nuart)

STEP-UP 3D The dance battles that structure the Step Up films are all about the Move — the one unexpected, mind-blowing, totally impossible move that ends a competition and raises the game. The franchise itself has attempted such a maneuver with its third installment, Step Up 3D, which, you might have guessed, was filmed in 3-D. Meant to take the scrappy and often ingeniously choreographed dance sequences to the next level, the result is stalled between floors: Some sick moves get even sicker; some become distorted and freakishly distracting. Those who watch these films for the dancing (i.e., everyone not trying to learn English) will find themselves in a purist bind: Aren't these dancers their own special effects? Some previous cast members return, including Moose (Adam Sevani) and Camille (Alyson Stoner), NYU freshmen whose friendship is tested when Moose is recruited to help a local dance crew win a really important thingy. Also recruited is Natalie (Sharni Vinson), the mysterious designated hottie who is not all that she seems! Director Jon Chu (Step Up 2: The Streets) lets his dancers define the space. For all of the technical dazzle, his actual technique — full-body shots and essential cutting, showcased in a spectacular, single-take duet through New York's streets — is blissfully old-school. (Michelle Orange) (Citywide)