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R, 2:00, drama
In the “Has Fallen” mythology, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) has become a cipher, a character around which a filmmaker can project the paranoid political fantasy of the week. Here he is dropped into his own “Three Days of the Condor,” a conspiracy thriller in which the government has turned on him. This time, it’s our hero who has fallen, the “guardian angel” to President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman, the only returning co-star). After a drone attack on the president, Banning wakes up cuffed to a hospital bed, framed to take the fall. Indicted and imprisoned, then kidnapped by the very mercenaries who did try to kill the president, Banning has no choice but to go rogue.
R, 1:43, drama
This enjoyable comedy asserts that change is possible, weight can be lost and races can be won, or at least completed. It’s simple stuff in terms of narrative. But it’s amplified by a few satisfyingly complicated aspects of the title character, played by Jillian Bell. The movie is very hard on its protagonist, and not all the obstacles, humiliations and setbacks escape the realm of cheap pathos. Brittany’s self-doubt (and full-on destructive self-loathing) makes it a pretty harsh experience. The movie succeeds because Bell succeeds. It’s gratifying to see a so-called character actress with reliably deadly comic timing loosen up, stretch out and carry a movie.
R, 1:30, comedy
The tale of sixth graders f-bombing their way through a series of adolescence-threatening adventures en route to a nerve-wracking kissing party, “Good Boys” is located at the intersection of “Superbad” and “Baby’s Day Out.” The film rests on the comic potential of kids swearing like it’s a “South Park” audition. But the three at the center of what passes for the story — sweet, crafty Max (Jacob Tremblay of “Room”), sweet, guileless Lucas (Keith L. Williams) and rough-around-the-edges musical theater kid Thor (Brady Noon) — find themselves on the cusp of a new, uncertain phase of life. This saves “Good Boys” from its own weaknesses.
R, 1:43, horror
The human desire for do-overs has fueled the fantasy underlying countless time-travel movies, including the 2000 film “Frequency,” which involves people in the present who communicate with dead people in the past. “Don’t Let Go” is pretty much that scenario, replacing the magic shortwave radio with a magic mobile phone. The movie works well enough, thanks to its stars: David Oyelowo as an LAPD detective and Storm Reid as his teenage niece, who was murdered two weeks earlier. Their connection and chemistry — which play in cellphone conversations wherein Jack tries to prevent her death — is critical to the success of the far-fetched story.
R, 1:30, thriller
I’ll say one thing for John Travolta’s performance in this movie about a rabidly movie-obsessed loser who goes off the deep end when he meets — and is rebuffed by — his favorite actor: He’s committed. Adopting an awkward gait, a nervous, grating delivery, nerdy glasses and an unflattering haircut, the actor invests the kind of intensity in his role that suggests he’s angling for an award. Unfortunately for him, the movie — directed by Limp Bizkit frontman-turned-filmmaker Fred Durst, whose experience with a stalker-like fan is said to have inspired the film — does not live up to the extravagantly wounded ferocity with which Travolta attacks his part.
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