Movie Guide

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Director: Lexi Alexander. With Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam, Claire Forlani. (109 min.)

Shaking off the hairy foot of the hobbit for the jackboot of the football (don't call it "soccer") fan, Elijah Wood plays a student who goes to London only to be seduced by the violence of the football hooligan. "Green Street Hooligans" is a movie for Americans about an aspect of English culture that has all the exposition one might expect. But it also has a convincing performance by Wood as a meek kid out of his element for whom the group provides manhood, friendship, and something larger than himself. Grade: B
- John Anderson

Director: Les Mayfield. With Samuel L. Jackson, Eugene Levy. (83 min.)

Eugene Levy gets his first costarring role playing a dental salesman, which is ironic since the film has no teeth - also no brain or heart. Levy is a marvelous comic actor and the movies need more of his owlish quizzicality and bushy caterpillar eyebrows. What we don't need is "The Man." Levy's opposite number here, a federal agent with whom he gets entangled in an arms heist plot, is played by Samuel Jackson in full scowl. Grade: C-
- Peter Rainer

Director: Julian Fellowes. With Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson, Rupert Everett. (87 min.)

Proper, bordering-on-pompous London solicitor Thomas Manning (Wilkinson) is wounded deeply when his younger wife (Watson) takes up with an insufferably arrogant neighbor (Everett). The film manages to make reasonable parallels between physical violence and emotional betrayal without curdling the pudding. Grade: B
- J.A.

Director: Fernando Meirelles. With Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz. (129 min.)

After the murder of his wife, Justin (Fiennes) is compelled to root out her killers across two continents. The movie, based on a book by John Le Carré, is a love story crossed with international intrigue. But when it all comes together, it rises to a pitch of terror and outrage that leaves one shaken. Grade: A-
- P. R.

Director: Louis Leterrier. With Jason Statham, Amber Valletta. (88 min.)

When a small army of thugs kidnaps a little boy, his driver/bodyguard (Statham) learns the whole thing is a nefarious conspiracy. If "The Transporter" was mindless fun, this sequel suggests there can be an IQ less than zero. Grade: C-
- M.K. Terrell