The Gunman, 1971

The Gunman

1971




Capsule reviews on two new films:

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Ben Stiller's update of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" achieves more of what it sets out to do than most of the better-pedigreed Christmas releases this year.

Gangster Squad

The new year starts with a bang – zillions of ‘em – in “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer’s postwar-L.A. “Gangster Squad,” an unexpectedly pleasurable entertainment made with copious amounts of humor and a lightness of spirit never hinted at in the trailers.

This Must be the Place

Director Paolo Sorrentino's "This Must be the Place" certainly qualifies as unique. It stars Sean Penn as a onetime pop rocker named Cheyenne who, three decades after his Goth heyday, still dresses the part but otherwise lives quietly with his loving, serene wife Jane (Frances McDormand) on an oversized estate in Ireland. The death of Cheynne's estranged Jewish father brings him back to America, and a chat with noted Nazi hunter Moredcai Midler (Judd Hirsch) sets him on the trail of the man who tormented his dad all those decades ago.