This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Before we get to the decent movies this week, let us pause to consider "108 Stitches" — which The Cricket declared, while on his regular Thursday appearance on X96's "Radio From Hell" show, to be the worst movie ever made in Utah.
The Cricket does not make this pronouncement lightly — and he says it fully keeping in mind the movie that has long held that title, "Troll 2." No, "108 Stitches," a weakly executed and humorless campus raunch comedy, is that bad and worse. (Thankfully, it's only opening at one theater, the ShowStar Cinemas 6 in Taylorsville.)
The good stuff opening this weekend is over at the Broadway Centre Cinemas.
"The Drop" is a dark, atmospheric gangster drama, as one would expect from an adaptation of a Dennis Lehane short story. (The "Mystic River" and "Gone Baby Gone" author also wrote the screenplay.) Tom Hardy plays Bob, a Brooklyn bartender whose tavern is a "drop bar" in which mobsters hold their ill-gotten money. When the bar is robbed, Bob and his cousin Marv (James Gandolfini), the bar's original owner, are on the hook with the Chechen gangsters whose money was taken. Hardy and Gandolfini give compelling performances.
"The Trip to Italy" reunites director Michael Winterbottom and British actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. They collaborated on "The Trip" (2011), with Coogan and Brydon as slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, traveling England's Lake District sampling restaurants and trying to one-up each other with their dead-on impressions. (Their dueling Michael Caines are a classic.) This time, they do the same thing in Italy, eating good pasta and tracing the paths of Byron and Shelley. It's just as funny as before, and rather touching to see this friendship in action.
Also, the Broadway is bringing back the Global Film Initiative, with 10 films from developing countries. For $10, you can get a pass good for all 10 movies, running all week.
This week's big studio movie is "Dolphin Tale 2," which continues the adventures of Winter, the dolphin who lost her fin and swims with a prosthetic one. This follow-up dives into the day-to-day life at the aquarium and marine hospital where Winter lives, and how her human caretakers (led by Harry Connick Jr.) must find a new swimming buddy for Winter when her old companion dies. The human melodrama is safe and predictable, but the dolphin interaction is interesting.
Another inspirational drama is the British film "Believe," being distributed in the States by Utah-based distributor Excel Entertainment. Scottish actor Brian Cox is great as Sir Matt Busby, the legendary Manchester United manager who, in his retirement in the 1980s, takes on coaching duties for an under-12 team in a city tournament — while also dealing with the memories of his old players, killed in a 1958 plane crash. The sports action follows the usual ups and downs, but Cox's solid performance gives it some grit.
Two more movies are opening without critics' screenings: "No Good Deed," a thriller in which an escaped convict (Idris Elba) terrorizes a mom (Taraji P. Henson); and "Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?," the concluding chapter in the trilogy based on conservative icon Ayn Rand's famous novel.