Kruger, Diane

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    ‘Longing’ Review: A Test of Paternity

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    Richard Gere plays it way too cool as a man learning about the son he didn’t know he had.Plausibility complaints always feel cheap, but “Longing” strains credulity well past the breaking point. This is the Israeli writer-director Savi Gabizon’s second try at this premise — he is remaking his 2017 feature of the same title — but it is difficult to imagine that it ever made sense.The movie opens with Daniel (Richard Gere) meeting a former partner, Rachel (Suzanne Clément). He has little time for her, until she drops a bombshell. When they separated, she was pregnant, and their son, Allen, unknown to Daniel, has just died at 19 in a car accident.Daniel travels to Hamilton, Ontario, where they lived, and things get even stranger. Daniel arrives for a graveside memorial service, but no one is present except a priest. Rachel’s husband, Robert (Kevin Hanchard), later informs Daniel that Rachel has been in the hospital for two days. But did Allen have no other friends or relatives?“Longing” soon turns into a series of mostly one-on-one interactions in which people tell Daniel about Allen. Allen’s friend (Wayne Burns) asks Daniel for money that he and Allen owed a drug dealer. Daniel finds that Allen had an obsession with a teacher (Diane Kruger) that escalated to the point of expulsion and possible police involvement. Most disturbingly, Daniel learns that Allen had been staying long-term not with Rachel and Robert but with another family and may have been preying on the family’s underage daughter (Jessica Clement). Unfathomably, Daniel does not immediately question Rachel and Robert about this news.Is the city of Hamilton playing an elaborate prank on the self-absorbed Daniel? No, everything is on the level. Gere coasts on movie star charisma, a quality that apparently enables Daniel to remain cool when any rational person would be continually enraged.LongingRated R. Dark themes concerning teenagers. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Out of the Blue’ Review: The Spider and the Fly

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      An unhappy wife leads her younger lover down a dangerous path in this sexy, yet predictable drama from Neil LaBute.From the moment Marilyn Chambers (Diane Kruger) sashays from the ocean in “Out of the Blue,” a vision in a sizzling orange swimsuit, we sense she’s bad news. (And not just because her creator is Neil LaBute, a director not known for writing sympathetic characters.) There’s something about the way she appraises the handsome young stranger, Connor Bates (Ray Nicholson), who’s watching her approach with puppyish delight. Like her adult-movie namesake, Marilyn knows how to cultivate male lust.And poor Connor, a sweet-natured librarian and recovering felon, is instantly mad for her. Soon, though, a discreetly bruised Marilyn will confess a problem: Her wealthy husband, wouldn’t you know, is knocking her about.“Maybe I can be the solution,” Connor offers, his plans to quietly rebuild his life melting between Marilyn’s milky thighs. Marilyn might be a mature-temptress cliché, but she can’t be accused of phoning it in: As the couple bonks relentlessly in the woods, on the kitchen table and even among the book stacks, we can almost see Connor’s brain cells dissolve. And, to be fair, “Out of the Blue” is never less than upfront about the familiarity of its setup (the dialogue repeatedly references “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” most recently adapted for the screen in 1981) and its own old-fashioned rhythms. One climactic scene is even preceded by an actual drum roll.Like most of LaBute’s work, “Out of the Blue” is talky, sparsely staged and presented with his signature detachment. The two leads are fine, though Hank Azaria, as Connor’s probation officer, and Frederick Weller, playing a cross sheriff’s deputy, wrestle with lines that are almost cartoonishly hard-boiled. A last-minute twist comes too late to rescue the plot; Connor, sadly, was always beyond saving.Out of the BlueRated R for enthusiastic, multilocational sex. Running time: 1 hour 44 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 355’ Review: Exile in Bondville

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      Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger and Fan Bingbing star in an espionage thriller that’s slick but banal.Two centuries before James Bond 007, there was Agent 355, a lady spy on George Washington’s side during the American Revolutionary War who helped identify the turncoat Benedict Arnold. Her name was hidden from history, but her code number has been claimed by this slick and grim espionage flick that aspires to become an all-star, all-female franchise — the Spice Girls version of Bond. Jessica Chastain, a producer and star of the movie, even used Twitter to crowdsource casting suggestions for a “#BondBoy.”Why not? But we’re going to need a better plot than one built around a bunch of heroes and terrorists chasing after yet another doomsday gizmo. Chastain’s Mace Browne, a C.I.A. workaholic repulsed by romantic commitment, is hellbent on securing a one-of-a-kind cyber-whatsit able to hack into and hijack any computer-controlled device on the planet, from a power grid to a plane. This device could start World War III, Mace warns an MI6 computer whiz, Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o), in a rusty clunker of a line that warns the audience that the only novelty in Simon Kinberg’s thriller is the cast. It doesn’t take a super sleuth to fill in the rest. There will be lectures on teamwork, confessions squeezed out “the easy way or the hard way” and speeches about the invisible front lines of modern warfare, all rote hubbub building toward a blowout gun battle that makes sure to set aside a bad boyfriend for a sequel.But what a cast. Chastain and Nyong’o rumble with Diane Kruger, peer pressure Penélope Cruz and are struck dumb by Fan Bingbing, who saunters in halfway through to shake things up. Individually, the women represent the differing national security interests of the United States, England, Germany, Colombia and China; their pitiful male colleagues, however — the lovesick partner (Sebastian Stan) who uses a sting operation to make Mace playact as his fiancée, the distrustful boss (Sylvester Groth) who diagnoses Kruger’s near-feral street fighter with daddy issues — make a case for the women to form a feminist Brawlers Without Borders.Kinberg and Theresa Rebeck’s screenplay races through five continents, and as many betrayals and switcheroos. (The cinematographer, Tim Maurice-Jones, seems most inspired by Shanghai’s iridescent neon blues.) The filmmaking deserves credit for refusing to leer as the ladies convincingly kick and punch — all focus is on the stunts, not on sex appeal.Yet there’s a sense that “The 355” felt forced to pick between being sincere or being fun. It chose solemnity. As a result, it’s flat-footed even when the setups yearn to be playful. Viewers are not invited to giggle when a pursuit detours into a men-only bathhouse, or at a surreal moment in an undercover sequence when Chastain rips off her red wig disguise to reveal … her own identical red hair. The drums thunder as though they’re dead-serious about proving that women can make an expensive adventure that’s every bit as banal as the ones that boys crank out every month with basically the same plot. At least Cruz is allowed to get a laugh in a scene where her married soccer mom learns to flirt with a patsy. The twinkle in her eyes looks just like Sean Connery’s seductive gleam.The 355Rated PG-13 for copious male corpses. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. In theaters. More