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      ‘Zero Contact’ Review: A Token of the Times

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      Rick Dugdale’s thriller, shot over Zoom early in the pandemic, stars Anthony Hopkins as an eccentric tech genius. It was previously released as an NFT.It seems that innovation is everything to the director Rick Dugdale. In May 2020, while many people were still learning to bake sourdough, Dugdale began to shoot the techno-thriller “Zero Contact” over Zoom. Last year, the director released the movie, a modestly amusing flick, as a nonfungible token, or NFT. “Zero Contact” stars Anthony Hopkins as Finley Hart, an enigmatic engineer and genius whose death is reported in the opening credits. Hart leaves behind hours of recorded video logs filled with twisty, seemingly half-improvised monologues, which give the impression that his tongue can’t keep up with his brain.While Hart was alive, he spent decades developing teleportation technology. Bad things will happen if the machine he left behind implodes. The conceit is to make this familiar ticking-time-bomb plot take place on computer screens. An unseen spy watches Hart’s estranged son (Chris Brochu) and feisty former employees panic during an emergency virtual meeting, and taps into their cellphone and security cameras. Every few seconds, the image glitches, apparently for added realism.Hopkins’s character is a routine riff on the aloof tycoon. “I lost touch with my humanity,” he quips, “boohoo.”There’s a vicarious pleasure to be found in watching Hopkins, the octogenarian actor, getting the hang of technology that allows him to film himself without the usual hovering crew. Indeed, the behind-the-scenes footage that plays over the movie’s end credits is as engaging as its plot. “Who’s that on the left?” Hopkins asks, pointing at a corner of his video-call frame. Told that it’s the screenwriter Cam Cannon, Hopkins beams. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he says, “I hope I didn’t take too much liberty with your writing!”Zero ContactRated R for a grisly moment of violence. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Barbarians’ Review: Unexpected Visitors

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      In this new thriller set in the countryside, tension mounts between two men until a home invasion takes it to homicidal heights.The new thriller “Barbarians” might look familiar to those acquainted with the director Lars von Trier’s 2009 film, “Antichrist.” Both movies center on a wealthy couple in the countryside destined for violent encounters, as portended by a dying fox. But where “Antichrist” depicts a crisis of femininity, as a wife is overtaken by madness, “Barbarians,” in the directorial debut by Charles Dorfman, is all about masculinity.The couple in “Barbarians” is Eva (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and Adam (Iwan Rheon) — she a wildly successful sculptor and he a mediocre director. It is Adam’s birthday, and he must decide whether to commit to his girlfriend and buy a dreamy, rural estate with her. That choice becomes less clear-cut when his longtime frenemy, Lucas (Tom Cullen), a real estate developer who owns the house, arrives for dinner with his girlfriend, Chloe (Inès Spiridonov). Lucas appears to be everything Adam isn’t: swaggering, successful, tall. Tension between the two men mounts until a home invasion takes it to homicidal heights.I find the idea of a small man feeling emasculated by his thriving girlfriend tiresome enough in real life, and Dorfman, who also wrote the script, doesn’t manage to elevate it for the big screen. Aside from some cool aerial shots and an always excellent Cullen, there’s not much worth fussing about.Despite their biblical names, Adam and Eva learn little from their time in Eden. The film hinges on Adam’s ability to kill: He couldn’t put the fox out of its misery, but his stomach becomes stronger as he proves his masculinity through brute strength.“Antichrist” may have been chauvinistic in its own right, but at least was interesting to watch. “Barbarians” doesn’t provide much excitement at all.BarbariansNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Nightride’ Review: One Last Job

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      The movie is indebted to neon-lit crime thrillers set behind the wheel of an outlaw’s automobile, but it fails to deliver the goods.Stephen Fingleton’s “Nightride” is indebted to a rich tradition of nocturnal, neon-lit crime thrillers set behind the wheel of an outlaw’s automobile, beginning with Walter Hill’s 1978 classic “The Driver” and continuing through Michael Mann’s 1981 heist flick “Thief” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 throwback “Drive.”As if to make these connections even clearer, in an early scene a drug-dealing Ph.D. candidate called Scholar (Ciaran Flynn) is speaking to his supplier, Budge (Moe Dunford), and holding forth on the brilliance of Mann, who also directed the 2006 film “Miami Vice.” Scholar believes that “Miami Vice” is “the apex of Mann’s post-celluloid filmography.” But the Mann picture that “Nightride” most resembles is probably “Collateral,” which similarly concerns an all-night criminal odyssey and takes place primarily inside a car. Had Fingleton included a hacker as a character, we could have had a bit of “Blackhat,” too.The plot of “Nightride” is little more than an assembly of stock types: the crook trying to go clean (Dunford), the loan shark feared for his vicious reprisals (Stephen Rea), the well-meaning girlfriend who becomes endangered when the big score goes wrong (Joana Ribeiro). Its distinguishing feature is that the action unfolds in real time, in one (seemingly) continuous 90-minute take, as Budge, the drug-runner played by Dunford, cruises around Belfast trying to pull off one last job.The one-take gimmick — much easier to achieve now thanks to digital cameras —has become common enough that it barely qualifies as novel, having been used in “Birdman,” “Victoria,” and “1917,” among many others. As in those movies, there is a kind of “Look, Ma, no hands!” bluster to this technique that smacks of needlessly showing off, calling attention to the aptitude of the filmmaker at the expense of the characters and the story. It’s worth noting that while Mann’s crime films are aesthetically sumptuous, the images are always in service of the ideas — not the other way around.NightrideNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Hell Is Empty’ Review: Sins of the Father

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      In this bare-bones horror film, a young woman joins a cult and eventually defies its patriarch.In horror, the burden of taking down the patriarchy — whether symbolized by a group of violent men or just one foreboding male monster — often rests on the humble shoulders of a young woman. “Hell Is Empty,” a film by the director Jo Shaffer about a girl who haplessly joins and eventually dismantles a remote cult, follows this tradition. Unfortunately, its heroine is just one in a series of underwritten characters.The film centers on Lydia (Spencer Peppet), a redheaded runaway who is found, unconscious, in the wilderness and brought to the cult compound by its leader, Ed (Travis Mitchell). Lydia joins four other women in a rickety island shack overseen by Ed, who the followers also call Artist, for his prolific paintings of biblical scenes and the apocalypse. One noticeably pregnant follower, Saratoga (Nia Farrell), claims to be a virgin expecting the son of God. Lydia sees no red flags here and happily stays, eventually fighting back against Ed — and two of the other women — only after things get murderous.Forget about hell, the emptiness these filmmakers must address lies primarily in their predominantly female cast of characters. We don’t know where Lydia comes from, nor why it would be a worse place to return to than a cult led by a rapist. There is no plot justification for Lydia’s bizarre acceptance, just as there is little background for anything else in the script, co-written by Shaffer and Adam DeSantes.One of Ed’s followers, Murphy (Aya), stumbles from scene to scene, hunched over and completely mute. An oblivious crony to Ed, she presents a particularly galling caricature of developmental disability, one that is painful to watch in 2022. The movie’s press notes explain that Murphy grew up alone and feral in the forest, but there is no mention of this in the film itself — an apt example of how “Hell Is Empty” renders all its players with aggravating shallowness.Hell Is EmptyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘The Tiger Rising’ Review: A Cage of Clichés

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      A lonely boy finds an ally when he discovers a caged tiger in a forest behind his home, but imagination is somehow short-lived in this children’s movie.In the children’s drama “The Tiger Rising,” a lonely boy whose mother recently died finds a spiritual ally when he discovers a caged tiger in a forest behind his home in rural Florida.Rob (Christian Convery) is a shy 12-year-old whose skin disorder has made him a target for his classmates. They call him, in an example of the movie’s flavorless affectations, Disease Boy.Rob stumbles upon the tiger when he wanders the woods alone, but the quiet boy is an unlikely companion for such a wild creature. It’s only when he befriends a spirited new student named Sistine (Madalen Mills) that Rob’s imagination is given room to grow.Loneliness bonds the two outcasts, and together, they find an outlet for their frustrations by visiting the tiger. They want to set the animal free, even if it’s against the advice of the one adult Rob and Sistine trust, Willie May (Queen Latifah), a maid whom the children think of as a prophet.The director and screenwriter, Ray Giarratana, mixes elements of whimsy and childhood longing into “The Tiger Rising,” based on the book by Kate DiCamillo, with drawings that come to life and vivid dreams of tigers running wild. The fantasy sequences provide the film with momentary zings of energy. But imagination is short-lived, as the movie seems to wring every drop of sentiment from its scenes of lonesome dreamers.Here, children are angels who overcome demons, Black women are endowed with otherworldly wisdom, and tigers are symbols of spiritual emancipation. The metaphors are so obvious that the film becomes trapped in its own cage of archetypes and clichés, and unlike the tiger, there is no champion to open the gates to a more original cinematic world.The Tiger RisingRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘A Cops and Robbers Story’ Review: Keep Your Enemies Closer

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      This documentary follows a police officer who rose through the ranks while concealing his criminal past.Corey Pegues, the subject of the slim and sober documentary “A Cops and Robbers Story,” started in law enforcement in 1992, eventually becoming a commanding officer in his 20-year career with the New York City Police Department. But as a Black officer, Pegues was often treated with suspicion by his fellow policemen, who would snidely comment that he was too close to the community he was patrolling.What these officers didn’t know was that Pegues had once been part of a drug gang in Queens known as the Supreme Team. When he trained new officers, his presentations included criminal data on his own friends and former associates. Pegues was, in effect, living a double life.Pegues’s story is told through photographs, home videos and, most significantly, through present-day interviews with him, his family, friends and former contacts in both the police department and among members of the Supreme Team. The director, Ilinca Calugareanu, also includes re-enactments to stage the dramatic episodes from Pegues’s life, such as his failed attempt to shoot and kill a man.The re-enactments are attractively filmed, with stark cinematography and colorful costume choices. But their inclusion disrupts the flow of the narrative, often looping back to demonstrate scenes that have already been explained.The repetition of verbal and visual storytelling points to the limited scope of this film. “A Cops and Robbers Story” explores Pegues’s split loyalties, but the talking head interviews tend to isolate characters whose very intimacy is the subject of the film. If the central problem of Pegues’s life was that his past and present could never interact, the documentary replicates rather than resolves this tension.A Cops and Robbers StoryNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘The Novice’ Review: A Freshman Effort Worthy of Varsity

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      The obsessive ambitions of a college rower are masterfully orchestrated in a debut feature by the writer-director Lauren Hadaway.In “The Novice,” the impressive debut feature from the writer-director Lauren Hadaway, Alex (Isabelle Fuhrman) is a college freshman who finds purpose in the masochistic ecstasy of team rowing.Alex isn’t suited to the demands of her sport. She’s not as strong as her crew mates, and she’s not as team-oriented as they are either. But she becomes obsessed with rowing, driven to achieve her goal of making the school’s varsity squad, even if her incessant efforts alienate her peers and coaches. Not even Alex’s first queer romance with Dani (Dilone), a confident teaching assistant, can draw Alex out of her fixation. She begins her season as a novice, and threatens to end it as a zealot.Hadaway has crafted a film that thematically and visually resembles Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash,” for which she served as a sound editor. But where Chazelle’s film followed a protagonist with world-class aspirations, the modest scale of Alex’s ambitions keeps “The Novice” more grounded as a character study, and helps the film steer clear of overblown statements about success. The protagonist merely wishes to be the worst rower on her team’s best boat.Without the pressure of narrative grandeur, Hadaway is free to go big in her filmmaking style. She uses maximalist techniques like slow motion, rapid editing and deep space staging to create dreamlike sequences of Alex’s isolation. Fuhrman’s performance matches the filmmaking for its intensity. The movie achieves a surreal allure — at times, it’s hard to pay attention to the dialogue because the images and the sound design are already communicating so much. If the story’s hero can only aspire to the middle of the pack, the beginner behind the camera shows no such limitations.The NoviceRated R for intense sequences of distress, language, brief nudity, and some sexual content. Running time: 1 hours 34 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Fatal Distraction’ Review: Parents Go Through the Unthinkable

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      In the documentary by Susan Morgan Cooper, a father is on trial after his baby dies in the back seat of a hot car.On the morning of June 18, 2014, Justin Ross Harris and his wife, Leanna, were the adoring parents of a 22-month-old son, Cooper. By the end of the day, their child was dead. Harris forgot to drop off his son at day care, and instead drove to work, leaving Cooper in the back seat, where the child died in the Georgia heat.This year, 23 children have died in hot cars, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The documentary “Fatal Distraction” uses the tragic example of the Harris family to demonstrate this phenomenon. By following Harris’s murder trial in 2016, it shows the worst case scenario of what can happen when a child is left unattended.The director Susan Morgan Cooper (“To the Moon and Back”; “An Unlikely Weapon”) takes the title of her film from a 2009 article written by Gene Weingarten, who appears in the documentary, along with a number of experts who have studied the issue of hot car deaths. In talking head interviews that unfortunately establish the film’s rote, even indifferent visual style, specialists offer dispassionate explanations for how parents can forget their children.More powerful sequences involve statements from experts of a different kind — the agonized parents of children who died in the back seat. Cooper’s mother, Leanna, is interviewed for the movie, and her recollections of her son’s death and her ex-husband’s trial are among the movie’s most damning testimonies against the common practice of criminalizing caregivers who leave their children behind.If the film is at times unimaginative as a work of art, it succeeds as a humane resource for understanding an unthinkable scenario.Fatal DistractionNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More