BACKYARD
Runs 7 p.m. Fri., Sept. 12-Thurs., Sept. 18, at Little Theatre
FRANCOIS DUHAMEL
Scared straight? Lohman introduces Cage to the terrors of parenthood.
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The sadistic glee valve turns easily whilst watching hill-jack teenswho by and large resemble stars of any given Harmony Korine Dogma flickpummel one another with wooden boards, light fixtures, picture frames, and barbed-wire bats. But there are dark, humanistic sagas in this trailer-park trouncing, vignettes of violent upbringings for impoverished, uneducated kids. Documentarian Paul Hough wants to tell those stories, but the Jackass facet of the backyard-wrestling universe is just too goddamn hi-larious. Driving down lonely, scorching interstates, he encounters multiple wrestling communities and their ghetto superstars: the brothers who put themselves through "three stages of hell" in an effort to both memorialize and demystify their abusive father; the conservative California precollegiates who mewl like kitties when their friends bleed. Most memorable is the Lizard, an undersized, marble-mouthed enthusiast who actually qualifies for the early stages of a WWE Tough Enough contest in Vegas. It's being screened as part of the Little Theatre's Wrestlezania! series, which also includes two docs about pro wrasslin' icon Fred Blassie (9 p.m. Fri., Sept. 12), the Bowery Boys in No Holds Barred (9 p.m. Sat., Sept. 12), and Japanese women wrestlers in Gaea Girls (9 p.m. Tues., Sept. 16-Sun., Sept. 21, reviewed next week). (NR) ANDREW BONAZELLI
CABIN FEVER
Opens Fri., Sept. 12, at Varsity and others
The world has waited too long for Rider Strong, Ben Savage's surly, wrong-side-of-the-tracks sidekick on the syndicated teen melodrama Boy Meets World, to snag his first Hollywood lead. Doubt anyone saw Boy Meets Decaying Flesh in Mid-Cunnilingus coming. Intended as a broad homage to a litany of horror classics, Fever doesn't have enough of its own macabre thrillslast sentence excludedto transcend tribute status. Director/co-writer Eli Roth spins strands of Friday the 13th (sexy teens vacation at isolated cabin), Evil Dead (something evil's a-lurkin' in the forest), Scream (the kids are potty-mouthed, self-aware cretins), Night of the Living Dead (paranoid, boxed-in protagonists turn on one another), and Creepshow 2 (aforementioned nauseating flesh-eating virus) into an enormous ball of yawn. Rotting flesh ain't exactly the deepest metaphor, and Fever closes with a garish, inappropriate one-liner rather than specifying a crucial cast member's fate or even courteously justifying the preceding grotesquerie. (R) A.B.
HEROD'S LAW
Opens Fri., Sept. 12, at Metro
The most relentlessly cynical film I've seen since Chicago, Luis Estrada's 1999 satire savagely explicates the titular law: In life, you're either fucking someone over or getting fucked over yourself. Estrada and cinematographer Norman Christianson craft beautiful, noirish, sepia-toned sequences that play like a hybrid of Shakespearean scheming and Chaplin-era slapstick. The year is 1949, and simpleton Juan Vargas (DamiᮠAlcạr) finds himself entangled in local politics when a small-town mayor loses his head and the party bosses install Vargas as a puppet. What ensues is the usual skulduggery, snappy in execution but hardly original. Vargas' power-hungry wife (Leticia Huijara) turns into Se� Macbeth, while Vargas himself locks horns with local lawbreakers, only to end up accepting bribes and conspiring with a lecherous priest and a stone-hearted madam. The film, also known as El Ley de Herodes, goes on a bit too long and includes an embarrassing performance by Alex Cox (as a meddling gringo), but in this age of Bush II, for those living on either side of the border, this wicked, sharp-edged political satire is all the more welcome. (NR) NEAL SCHINDLER
MATCHSTICK MEN
Opens Fri., Sept. 12, at Metro and others
The real mark in any con-man flick is the audience, and in that sense Matchstick adequately pulls off the job. It's not The Sting, but there's enough larceny in its blood to winor stealyou over. Nicolas Cage is Roy, an obsessive-compulsive, agoraphobic, tic-afflicted, chain-smoking neatnik with a highly developed skill for taking money from the greedy. His junior partner is Frank (Sam Rockwell), a louche, loose, and seemingly lazy slob who brings none of Roy's patient craft to their small-stakes scams. In other words, it's Felix and Oscar turned to crime, until their criminal routine is disrupted by the arrival of Roy's hitherto unknown 14-year-old daughter, Angela (Alison Lohman). Combining two TV-familiar premises, Matchstick basically works for that reason: We know we're being set up; we know there's something lurking beneath the hugs and tears and lessons; we know better than to trust a con-man flick. There's got to be a twist. And thankfully, there is.
Unfortunately, before we get there, much sitcom stuff must be endured (Roy is forced to go to a shrink; he and Angela bond over pizza, chocolate ice cream, bowling, and crime; yadda, yadda, yadda). Director Ridley Scott does some interesting stuff with backlighting and vertical blinds (like a vampire, Roy hates sunlight), but he's famously dependent on the quality of the scripts others write for him, either good (Thelma & Louise) or bad (G.I. Jane). Here, the source novel by crime writer Eric Garciabetter known for the Casual Rex seriesplays like a lower-wattage version of Elmore Leonard, without the chandelier of Leonard's dim-bulb supporting players to lend sparkle to the treacle.
Matchbook lacks the hard-heartedness and hardheadedness to rival the very similar father-daughter grifter comedy Paper Moon, but it makes for a pleasantly satisfying swindle. Scott generally has the good sense to let Cage be Cage, even tossing in a Roy-trapped-in-a-slow-line scene that nods back to Honeymoon in Vegas. And, by and large, Cage has the good sense not to overact, as if grateful for the chance to play a character who's already crazymeaning he doesn't have to redline the gonzometer to raise Roy to insanity. "I don't do long cons," Roy tells the more ambitious Frank, meaning that he prefers smaller returns and lower risks to the audacious, dangerous score. In the same way, Matchstick proves the rewards of that modest M.O. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO
Opens Fri., Sept. 12, at Metro and others
