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PBuzzard

Runs Fri., March 6–Thurs., March 12 at Grand Illusion. Not rated. 87 minutes.

Funny and bizarre enough to attract a cult following, Buzzard is also off-putting enough to keep its micro-indie cred. I think it might be the real thing. There are some recognizable influences, like the ratty-couch ambience of early Richard Linklater and Kevin Smith, with more than a touch of James Gunn’s wacky/hostile Super mixed in. But for all that, it only takes a few minutes of watching Buzzard to suspect there’s a stubbornly original filmmaker on the scene—namely Michigan writer/director Joel Potrykus, whose second feature this is.

We are in the world of Martin Jackitansky, a conniving slacker who seems to belong to a previous generation. He is played by an insolent actor named Joshua Burge, a hunkier version of Steve Buscemi but without Buscemi’s dramatic chops. Martin works as a temp at a bank, where he orders office supplies and then sells them back to the local big-box store. His life is a series of pitifully small-time scams, but at least he’s got a long-term goal: developing his old Nintendo power glove into a Freddy Krueger-like weapon. When a scheme to sign over bank reimbursement checks to himself leads Martin to suspect he might get into real trouble, he escapes to the basement of co-worker Derek (Potrykus, a deft comic performer). The hapless Derek lives with his dad, but he’s claimed the basement as the “Party Zone,” a heroic attempt to sustain the fantasy that he has a life. He’d really like to bond with Martin, but as the latter reminds him, theirs is not an actual friendship: “We’re work friends.” Nothing discourages Derek, a wonderful character who, at the very least, deserves his own web series.

Potrykus shifts the tone when Martin flees to Detroit, as Buzzard takes on darker coloration. Despite the zany episodes, the movie is aware that we’re in a society that lacks a safety net for lots of people, and Martin might be one of them. In tracing this slacker’s descent, this film has its share of curious digressions, including two nonsensical eating scenes: Derek scarfing Bugles off a moving treadmill (the snack is on the treadmill, not Derek); and Martin wolfing down a plateful of spaghetti and meatballs in a long, uncomfortable take. Those asides give the impression that Potrykus is making a lot of this up as he goes along, and maybe he is, but the confidence on display is unmistakable. If you gave this guy a bigger budget, it might not be a great idea. Scratching the American underbelly may be this director’s proper level. ROBERT HORTON

Queen and Country

Opens Fri., March 6 at Sundance 
Cinemas. Not rated. 115 minutes.

Though a relatively gentle homefront comedy, John Boorman’s 1987 Hope and Glory advanced the revisionist argument that—to uncomprehending children, at least—World War II was like a huge thrilling holiday. His sequel, set in 1952, again follows the Rohan family, whose only son Bill (bland, smiling Callum Turner) is again Boorman’s stand-in in this autobiographically inspired account. It’s a pleasant, nostalgic movie that didn’t need to be made (a memoir written, maybe), chiefly because he has nothing new to say about the postwar era. If WWII was, in childish Bill’s eyes, fun, the Cold War is here a fairly bland affair. There’s talk of fighting in Korea, dropping the A-Bomb, and even catching venereal diseases in the brothels of Seoul, but the movie barely leaves the barracks where conscripted Bill and his pal Percy (Caleb Landry Jones) are teaching soldiers to type.

These two discontented NCOs are confronted with an inflexible old-guard military (represented by David Thewlis and Brian F. O’Byrne) that refuses to acknowledge how the world is changing. Snatches of Sinatra and other American jukebox voices are heard; a new television set shows the coronation of Queen Elizabeth; but no one knows, apart from Boorman, how swiftly the sun is setting on the British Empire. Bill, certainly, is oblivious: He’s only intent on an unobtainable dream girl (a trite device in American Graffiti and also here). Percy, the rebel, meanwhile tweaks the ancien regime by stealing the regimental dining-hall clock (even less interesting than it sounds). And leave it to old pro Richard E. Grant, as the eye-rolling base commander, to signal how little any of this will matter in the following decade (when Withnail & I, also released in 1987, is set with a different memory tinge).

Boorman has made fine films including Point Blank, Deliverance, and The General. Hope and Glory struck a chord because of its warm, well-remembered details of everyday heroism (and weakness) beneath the Blitz. That patriotic glow is just beginning to wear off in Queen and Country, as noted by one of Bill’s superiors, who snaps at him in disgust, “This country is fucked.” Bill corrects him: “Your country,” even though Boorman shows us too much of the old England, not enough of the new. BRIAN MILLER

The Salvation

Opens Fri., March 6 at SIFF Cinema 
Uptown. Not rated. 100 minutes.

As a Western shot by a Danish crew in South Africa, The Salvation already has a hodgepodge air about it. The movie never quite overcomes that sense of being assembled from different directions, but—with the help of two charismatic stars—it does conjure up its share of evocative genre moments. The hook is set early, as a terrible act of frontier violence and instant retribution blows apart the world of Danish immigrant Jon (Mads Mikkelsen). Now Jon and his brother Peter (cool customer Mikael Peresbrandt, a Hobbit veteran) are targeted for revenge by a very bad hombre (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) whose henchmen have the usual traits of bad hygiene and lousy marksmanship. There’s also a woman, played by the thankfully ubiquitous Eva Green, who does not speak. A wordless role is no problem for this French actress, who looks as though she might set fire to the entire worthless town with a glance.

The town is actually not worthless, as we might guess when we see the occasional shots of black goo bubbling up from the ground. That the thirst for oil is behind all the atrocities committed in the story was probably appealing to director Kristian Levring (whose 2000 film The King Is Alive was one of the odder offspring of the Dogma movement). Levring certainly doesn’t do much with the Danish-immigrant angle, which is simply folded into the traditional Western storyline and barely referred to again. It’s a stark movie, but easy on the eyes; the costumes, for instance, are so overdressed and brightly colored that they have a comic-book quality. (That’s not actually a complaint.) Levring spends a lot of energy imitating the look of Sergio Leone’s widescreen spaghetti Westerns, a style that gives breadth to these bleak surroundings.

I can’t say why The Salvation exists, exactly, except that Europeans are very fond of this most American movie genre, and periodically get the urge to “do” a Western. This example works cleanly enough, even if it’s hard to locate a fresh take on the material. However, if you think Mikkelsen is a cool actor—are there people who don’t?—rest assured that the onetime Bond villain (Green was his co-star in Casino Royale) and star of TV’s Hannibal is perfectly comfortable in 1870s-era surroundings. His chiseled looks and laconic style were just waiting for a Western to come along, and for that reason alone The Salvation earns a look. ROBERT HORTON

The Second Best

Exotic Marigold Hotel

Opens Fri., March 6 at Sundance and other theaters. Rated PG. 122 minutes.

Losing track of narrative beats is a terrible sin in expensive screenwriting classes, but not so important to actual movies. Here is a modest demonstration. The plot devices in this sequel are so stale that the movie itself loses interest in them halfway through its dawdling 122 minutes—and this is a good thing. By that time the contrivances of Ol Parker’s script have done their duty, and we can get to the element that turned the film’s 2011 predecessor into a surprise hit: hanging around with a group of witty old pros in a pleasant location. There are many worse reasons for enjoying movies.

In the first Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a group of elderly British expats in India found themselves warming to the charms of a dilapidated inn. Now the hotel’s hyperactive manager Sonny (Dev Patel, from Slumdog Millionaire) is planning his marriage—and wants to add a second establishment to build his success. This leads to confusion over a secret visitor from an American finance company. The expats, now installed at the Marigold, have their own problems, which include randy Norman (Ronald Pickup) suspecting he’s inadvertently put a hit on his own girlfriend. These issues fade away, as director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) allows Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, and Penelope Wilton to float around on many years’ worth of accrued goodwill. Especially fine is the spindly Bill Nighy, whose shy Douglas is a hesitant suitor to Dench’s Evelyn, a still-active buyer of fabrics. Even when the story has him fulfilling sitcom ideas, Nighy maintains his tottering dignity and sense of fun. You’d like to know this guy.

We should note that Patel’s elaborate locutions have not aged well since the era of Peter Sellers’ comical Indian voices. Also that company newcomer Richard Gere looks sheepish throughout the film, as though he’d gotten to the set and belatedly realized he’d be in the company of some bona fide acting legends. Nevertheless, Second Best will be a hit with its original audience, and maybe then some. The languid mood is laced with an appreciation for getting to the End of Things, especially as Smith’s formerly snappish Muriel mellows into a melancholy leave-taking. At that point, you wish the slavish devotion to plot could be entirely forgotten in favor of sun-baked character turns and the amiability of a good ensemble. When those things take over, this film hits its stride. ROBERT HORTON

Wild Canaries

Runs Fri., March 6–Thurs., March 12 at Northwest Film Forum. Not rated. 
99 minutes.

A beloved old neighbor, who occupies a rent-controlled apartment in a valuable Brooklyn brownstone, suddenly drops dead. Perhaps because she has nothing else to do, Barri (Sophia Takal) posits a murder. Her live-in fiance Noah (Lawrence Michael Levine) is understandably skeptical, though third roomie Jean (Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat) is willing to help investigate the implausible crime, mainly because she’s got a crush on Barri. (Noah meanwhile has something going on with his supposedly lesbian boss, played by Annie Parisse, a Law & Order veteran and Mercer Island native.)

With its Bondian credit sequence and comically exaggerated score, Wild Canaries immediately announces itself a wild goose chase. A few bodies pile up (one dismembered) and somebody gets shot, but nothing here—apart from Barri and Noah’s relationship—should be taken too seriously. Barri’s fervid imagination is a generator of plausible premarital doubts: Maybe Noah isn’t the guy for her; possibly Jean is the girl for her; and certainly marriage itself is a dubious institution. (For an example of the latter, she need only look to the downstairs apartment of her friendly/smarmy landlord—an amusing Jason Ritter—and his volatile nest.)

Married filmmakers Takal and Levine have an easy rapport, and they elicit likable performances from all their cast. (Even the villains are hard to hate.) Without being wonky about it, they’re riffing back to the classic age of comic thrillers (think of The Thin Man, Rear Window, or Charade). Sex and violence are mostly displaced here, as in Old Hollywood; they’re the symbolic sparks that attend any two disparate bodies coming together. With her birdlike avidity, the innocent screwball heroine Barri becomes a sleuth—or even voyeur—into others’ unhappy domestic lives. Part of the movie’s charm is that, even after seeing the dark side to married life, she drags everyone around her into the sun. (Note: Takal and Levine will appear at Thursday’s screening.) BRIAN MILLER

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