Movie Guide

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Director: Mohammad Rasoulof. With Ali Nassirian, Hossein Farzi-Zadeh (90 min.)

"Iron Island," written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, is among the best movies to come out of Iran in the past several years. Its setting - an abandoned oil tanker in the Persian Gulf - is a microcosm of Iranian society, at least at the lower end. Captain Nemat (Nassirian) is the head of the disparate community living on the tanker. His dictatorial ways come into conflict with a teenage boy (Farzi-Zadeh) who steals a motorboat and is practically drowned as punishment. All in all, a harrowing, one-of-a-kind movie. Grade: A- (In Farsi with English subtitles.)

Director: Clark Johnson. With Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Kim Basinger. (108 min.)

Michael Douglas plays US Secret Service agent Pete Garrison, and his jaw has never seemed tighter. Pete once took a bullet for President Reagan, but now, with another presidential assassination plot afoot, is himself suspected of being the potential assassin. Pete, of course, is not the mole, but someone inside the Secret Service is, and much of the movie is taken up with Pete's attempts both to exonerate himself and catch the real culprit. His nemesis on the force is played by Kiefer Sutherland using the same raspy growl he uses on "24." The dialogue is wooden, so are many of the subsidiary performances, but the action is often good. Grade: B