LA Weekly

AAJA NACHLE If history has taught us anything, it’s that the effectiveness of a proposition such as Aaja Nachle (Come Dance) depends almost entirely on charm. In this case, that invitation is all but irresistible, because slinky Madhuri Dixit — Bollywood’s definitive leading lady of the ’90s, making a comeback of sorts after a a five-year hiatus — is both a world class hoofer and a gifted exponent of audience-seducing movie-star glamour delivered (crucially) with a glint of irony. As an expat Indian choreographer in New York who is called home upon the death of her guru, to save the now-crumbling ancient temple that was their performance space, Dixit is such an exhilarating presence that the movie’s fourth-hand “let’s put on a show” plot can be brushed off like a speck of lint. The credited first-time director is veteran Bollywood d.p. Anil Mehta (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna), though it was producer Aditya Chopra who smooshed together the chestnut pudding of a story from bits and pieces of truly original crowd-pleasers such as Lagaan, Swades and Rang De Basanti. He also salted the cast with indie-cinema ringers who lend the proceedings a touch of class, including the great character actor Irfan Khan (The Namesake), who’s riveting even in a tiny role. Likewise, Konkana Sen (Life . . . in a Metro) and Kunal Kapoor (Rang De Basanti) seem genuinely surprised and delighted by the feelings that overtake them when they’re drafted to play doomed lovers in a modernized production of the ancient seventh-century folktale Layla-Majnun, whose title characters are so deeply attuned to one another that when one of them is beaten, the other bleeds. Both in subject matter and form, this 25-minute music drama within the film tips its hat to the roots of Bollywood cinema’s most distinctive conventions — with the inestimable assistance of its most seductive modern axiom. (Naz 8; Fallbrook 7) (David Chute)


THE AMATEURS Welcome to Butterface Fields, a SoCal “smalltown USA” peopled by cheery barfly numbskulls with names like Mo & Ron, Some Idiot and Moose. Their king is Andy (Jeff Bridges, giving just enough, though not his all), a divorced and feckless sad sack who, faced with competition for his teen son’s respect, decides the best way to make a mark and score some bank is to gather the townsfolk to shoot an amateur porno. As a first-time director, Michael Traeger’s greatest, not inconsiderable talent is staying out of the way as his skilled and eminently likable cast (including a very good William Fichtner, Joe Pantoliano, Ted Danson and, making much out of almost nothing, Lauren Graham) generates a palpable camaraderie, while cinematographer Denis Maloney envelopes the film in a warm and homey amber glow, and editor Raúl Dávalos maintains a brisk narrative flow. The Amateurs is nothing if not easy to watch. Yet, as a writer, Traeger is consternatingly adolescent and glib, imagining a world where synonyms like fruit cup, honey pot and yodel are as funny as it gets; where cherub-faced innocents are discovered over and over to have insatiably kinky sex drives; where The Full Monty is still fresh enough to inspire cribbing; and where, if you’ve paid even slight attention, a surprise ending is no surprise at all. (The Landmark) (Hazel-Dawn Dumpert)


ATONEMENT See film feature  Click here for showtimes


AWAKE A medical thriller with a noggin full of novocaine, this shocker about a botched heart surgery evidently suffered brain surgery to match. Think of writer-director Joby Harold’s autopsy-turvy tale as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu with a high-concept lobotomy: Instead of some wheezy old Romanian dude descending the lower depths of health care hell, we get doe-eyed Hayden Christensen as the world’s most naive billionaire and unlikely heart-transplant candidate, whose troubles begin when “anesthesia awareness” leaves him conscious but paralyzed and unable to scream as doc Terrence Howard revs up the ol’ bonesaw. That would be contrivance enough for most thrillers, but factor in blushing bride Jessica Alba, suspicious mom Lena Olin and sinister cardio czar Arliss Howard — not to mention astral projection, supernatural visits, repressed memories and not one but two pivotal heart transplants — and you’ve got a movie that sucks more than it inhales. Harold’s glum overplotting squashes the sick humor and the innate fear of hospitals that gives the premise what kick it has; not even Craig McKay’s clever editing can defibrillate the preposterous ending. Even at 78 minutes, though, this definitely communicates a sense of anesthesia awareness — at least to your ass. (Citywide) (Jim Ridley)


THE BAND'S VISIT See film feature  Click here for showtimes


DIRTY LAUNDRY “If the beans ain’t cooking, there’s something wrong with the crockpot!” exclaims Loretta Devine’s fat, sassy matriarch in what is surely the best line of Dirty Laundry (there isn’t much competition). She’s referring to her daughter-in-law’s uterus here (yeah, ew), but she might as well be talking about the cheesy crockpot of a film that she’s starring in. The basic plot involves Sheldon (Rockmond Dunbar), a prodigal — and homosexual — son who returns to his Southern home after discovering that he fathered a child 10 years ago (thankfully, the mechanics of this are glossed over). Sheldon — who prefers, inexplicably, to be called Patrick — is a self-consciously urbane writer for a women’s magazine; when the kid shows up at the door of his “fabulous” New York apartment, he tells us that “in the literary world this is what we call an emotional climax.” Sorry, but . . . no. Weirdly, writer-director Maurice Jamal decides to show us this pivotal scene out of sequence, chopping it from the beginning of the movie and setting it down neatly in the middle; the result is a needlessly confusing first act that requires great feats of unrewarded concentration. Anyway, with gay, elitist Sheldon back among his wacky, loud, fried-chicken-chomping family, hijinks ensue. The end. (Beverly Center 13) (Julia Wallace)