It’s frightening that in the 21st century sex trafficking is becoming a bigger issue each year. The reason is simple — it’s extremely profitable. Young women are stolen and forced to pay off some imaginary debt that never ends. If they run or talk, they are brutalized. The problem is only worse in the chaos of war zones. But in the early part of the century, the sex trafficking scandal that rocked the U.N. and its contractors was beyond repulsive. Those tasked with protecting the citizens of Bosnia where participating in the rape of them.

Based on the true life scandal, this thriller follows Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz, THE CONSTANT GARDENER), a Nebraska cop who signs on to be a peacekeeper in Bosnia for the big paycheck. When she gets there she discovers that many of her fellow peacekeepers are too there for the paycheck, but nothing else. Her efforts to bring some law and order to the country are noticed by higher up human rights activist Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave, ANONYMOUS). Bolkovac is put in charge of women’s issues and soon discovers sex clubs where the “waitresses” have been forced there against their will. At first she is appalled to find that U.N. officers are frequenting these clubs, but it only gets worse the deeper she goes.

Larysa Kondracki’s film uses the structure of the tried and true internal affairs cop thriller. This makes this difficult story both accessible and engaging, but it never breaks free from the structure. This becomes very apparent toward the end when plot structure and efforts to amp up the tension force credibility to the side. The true life message loses some of its authenticity in the process.

Ever since her Oscar win for CONSTANT GARDENER, Weisz seems very suited for theses kinds of roles. It’s the kind of role Jane Fonda use to play, but Weisz doesn’t dip into the sanctimonious outrage Fonda sometimes exuded. Weisz comes off more matter of fact — like it’s just the right thing to do.

The story is given an emotional side through the plight of Raya (Roxana Condurache), a young girl sold into slavery by someone close to her. Kathryn saves her from one awful situation to put her into another one. The path to get Raya back home is filled with political landmines. Bureaucrat Laura Levin (Monica Bellucci, IRREVERSIBLE) can’t help her get back home because she doesn’t have a passport and she doesn’t have a passport because her captors took it so she can’t get home. Raya is afraid to trust the system, which we come to find is a very valid feeling when it lets her down and puts her back in the clutches of her enslaver.

As Kathryn uncovers how deep the corruption goes, she becomes more and more isolated. It goes too high and would embarrass important people at the contractor, U.N. and the U.S. government. Madeleine teams her with internal affairs officer Peter Ward (David Strathairn, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.), but how much he can protect her is in question too. Will she have time to save Raya before the powers that be crush her?

The most haunting part is that while Kathryn’s claims were validated by a British labor tribunal, nothing has happened. No one has been charged with crimes. DynCorp., the security firm that provided the peacekeepers, is still used by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. Makes you rethink a lot.

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Based on Stieg Larsson’s international bestseller, this film makes this the second time this story has been brought to the screen. The original Swedish version is very fresh in my mind, having made my top 25 list last year, ranking fourth, just behind David Fincher’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Now we have Fincher’s version of the same tale in English.

Still set in Sweden, Daniel Craig (CASINO ROYALE) plays journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who has just lost a libel suit after printing a damning report about a successful businessman. Turns out he was set up. Leaving his magazine in disgrace, Mikael takes a job offer from Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer, BEGINNERS), a retired businessman whose family operates one of the largest companies in the country. For decades, Henrik has been investigating the disappearance of his niece Harriet, who he raised like his own. The old man believes one of his family members murdered her.

As Mikael begins his investigation, we meet Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara, THE SOCIAL NETWORK), a skilled computer hacker who conducted the background check on Mikael for Henrik. She is pierced and tattooed and never wears anything that isn’t black. A goth girl with a history of violence, she is a ward of the state and has been assigned a new case worker named Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen, THE NEW WORLD), a sadistic man who blackmails sex out of Lisbeth. But he doesn’t know who he is dealing with.

Mara, a relative newcomer, was a surprise choice for the coveted role. She gives the character the right dose of vulnerability and chutzpa. For those who have seen Noomi Rapace’s performance it’s hard to not see the influence (whether intended or not) in Mara’s performance. Mara is given a more open version of the character. When Mikael takes an interest in her, she starts to drop her cool demeanor. The tough outside and quick temper is just a shield for her fractured heart. She’s just looking for a friend and an equal, which for her is difficult to come by.

Like the original film version, the story takes its time to set up its two investigators. When their stories merge, it’s like a dream team we’ve been waiting for. Henrik’s family is large so the suspect list is long. Martin (Stellan Skarsgard, GOOD WILL HUNTING) is Harriet’s brother and now runs the family company. He is the only one who supports Henrik’s investigation. Frode (Steven Berkoff, CLOCKWORK ORANGE) is Henrik’s right hand man and his protector. A protector from Henrik himself he says. Anita Vanger (Joely Richardson, ANONYMOUS) is Henrik’s niece who got away from the family the first chance she got. Cecilia (Geraldine James, SHERLOCK HOLMES) is another niece who doesn’t like the coverage of the family. Harald (Per Myrberg) is Henrik’s reclusive brother, who only leaves the house to go hunting.

Surprisingly the script from Steve Zaillian (SCHINDLER’S LIST) is not as subtle as Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg’s Swedish script. In the American version, the moral rabbit hole surrounding the conclusion is eliminated with Mikael simply siding with Lisbeth’s blood lust. I find this a very curious cultural distinction. Having not read the book I can’t say which script kept the most faithful, but what I can say is that the Swedish version handled the end coda with better economy and left Lisbeth more enigmatic.

The Swedish version made Lisbeth just as much of a mystery as the murder mystery. The American version makes her an avenging angel. Driven by a badass performance from Mara, the character remains very compelling still. Part of the joy of both versions is the contrast in investigating styles between Mikael and Lisbeth. It’s the perfect pairing of old school and new. Take from it what you will that Mikael plays by the rules and Lisbeth enjoys breaking every single one.

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Tomas Alfredson, who directed the wonderful Swedish vampire film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, adapts John le Carre’s classic spy novel into a slow burn thriller. His film is as laconic as his central character, played with great reserve by Gary Oldman. From its Cold War setting to its visual style, the film at times conjures up memories of Hitchcock’s latter day thrillers.

George Smiley (Oldman, LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL) was a top spy for MI6 before being forced into retirement after a botched mission left fellow agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong, STARDUST) shot in the street. The incident also took down his boss Control (John Hurt, THE ELEPHANT MAN), who has long believed that there is a Russian mole in the highest ranks of the “Circus.” When top official Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) gets a tip about the mole, he calls in Smiley to work outside the agency in order to root out the double agent.

Based on the children’s rhyme Control had code named the men he suspected. “Tinker” is Percy Alleline (Toby Jones, THE PAINTED VEIL), a man so determined in bringing in the big defector that he goes above his superiors’ heads in order to get funds for his own secret division. “Tailor” is Bill Haydon (Colin Firth, A SINGLE MAN), a respected agent who is known around the office as a ladies man. “Soldier” is Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds, MUNICH), a veteran agent who sees spy work as the front lines of a new war. “Poorman” is Toby Esterhase (David Dencik, a bureaucratic kiss-ass who was rescued from a Soviet block country by Control. “Beggarman” is Smiley.

Smiley requests a small team to help. Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch, WAR HORSE) is his man on the inside of the Circus who can secure him files. He’s young and called upon to do the most risky jobs. But he has his secrets too. Mendel (Roger Lloyd-Pack, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE) is now retired, raising bees, when he called back into duty to do the clean-up work. Later Smiley will receive key information from Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy, INCEPTION), a young agent who is believed to be a defector.

What Smiley uncovers is more about mind games than politics. Karla is the top Russian agent who Smiley met once. They’ve been twisting the insides of each other’s minds ever since. Alliances and friendships inside MI6 will be tested. Even Smiley isn’t above manipulating a fellow agent to get what he needs. It’s less about getting government secrets, but one upping your opponent. The only problem is we don’t quite know who is playing for whose team.

Alfredson is very patient in letting the details play out. There are no action-packed moments like a Bourne film. This is the kind of spy story where it works on the mind and rewards those that pay attention. Watch for a wonderful ode to REAR WINDOW in the scene where Ricky Tarr is staking out a Russian agent. The ingenious layering of the sequence where Peter has to sneak a log book out of the Circus is filled with tension because of the methodical pacing.

It is so hard to believe that Oldman has never been nominated for an Academy Award. His performance here is subtle and powerful. Watch his reaction when he learns that Control suspected him as a double agent. The look of sadness and disappointment speaks pages of dialogue in a mere look. Oldman gives Smiley the classic stiff British upper lip quality, but his joy at showing up those that kicked him out creeps through. He makes Smiley the consummate professional who has been worn down by a very demanding job.

The pacing might be an issue for some, but the story rewards those that stick with it. I found myself getting wrapped up in the way the agents on all sides used what they knew about each other to wage psychological warfare. It reminds us that national secrets are in the hands of mere men.

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This Norwegian fantasy thriller is Norwegian at its core and that is the best thing about it. On its surface, the film takes from found footage pictures such as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. A group of students set out to make a film and get more than they wished for. But in this case there aren’t witches, but trolls.

The students originally set out to chronicle bear poaching. They follow the gruff mountain man Hans (Otto Jespersen), whose Land Rover looks like it’s had a few run ins with some big “bears.” But the filmmakers find out quickly that Hans isn’t after bears, but trolls. He’s part of a secret government agency set out to keep the existence of the giant creatures secret. With incidents getting deadlier and more frequent, he decides to bring the students along with him to get the truth out.

When I say this film is Norwegian at its core I mean that its mythology is Norwegian. The plot borrows from mythology we know like trolls being able to smell the blood of a Christian men and the fact that sunlight turns trolls to stone. But it expands on those myths with modern weapons and science. Hans uses UV guns to make the trolls explode. The reason they turn to stone, we are told, because sunlight makes their bodies calcify. We discover all sorts of trolls such as Tosserlads, Ringlefinchs and Jotnars.

Writer/director Andre Ovredal mines a great deal of interest from his original world. Hans tells the students that they have to rub foul-smelling troll stench on their clothes in order to come along with him. This little fact provides great humor when a secret Christian starts feverishly covering himself with the stuff. The excuses that the government comes up with for troll attacks make swamp gas and weather balloons seem way more plausible.

It’s taken me this long to even mention the names of the students, because they are part of the film’s chief problem. They are just there to serve the plot. Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud) is the nerdy interviewer. Johanna (Johanna Morck) is the perpetually scared-face sound recorder. Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) is the guy behind the camera. That’s about it. Hans is by far the most interesting, but he is one dimensional at best. He’s a superhero, like if Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K from MEN IN BLACK was more like a Norwegian Swamp Hunter.

The next big flaw is that when you’ve seen one troll, you’ve seen them all. After the first two sightings, the film seems to be going through the motions to show us what cool CG troll the can come up with next. Also the cover-up seems implausible. These trolls are stories high, so wouldn’t someone see them coming from miles away? How do you cover up a walking skyscraper? This mockumentary is more of a curiosity than compelling. By the end I was like Fee! Fie! Ho! Hum!

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This indie has the general premise of KICK-ASS — what if a regular man became a vigilante superhero. But this film isn’t a satire, it takes the story seriously and takes it to the dark realms that it leads. As a character study, it really looks at the personality of someone who goes into the street to find justice while risking their life. The title might be a reference to Batman’s sidekick Robin, but this is not a teen in green, red and yellow tights.

Sean Donovan (Caleb Steinmeyer, TV’s LOST) could easily be described as a boy wonder. He speaks several languages, listens to classical music on his iPod, and spends his days at the police station combing through files looking for the man who murdered his mother. The cops just think he’s a troubled kid looking for some closure and they’re right, but what they don’t know is he’s finding it by hunting down criminals who have gotten away with murder.

Sean has had a tough life. Even before his mother died, he had to deal with his abusive alcoholic father Terry (Bill Sage, MYSTERIOUS SKIN), who has since sobered up, but the damage has already been done. Now a high schooler, Sean has no friends and is quick to anger. He views the world through his rage, making him hyper sensitive to conflict. He sees a mother reprimanding her son and to him it seems like she is threatening the kid when in reality she is calmly telling her son not to hit his little sister.

Teresa Ames (Zulay Henao, FIGHTING) is the new detective in the precinct where Sean hangs out. When a string of murders point to a vigilante, she starts to look toward Sean. What she doesn’t know is that Sean has been watching her for some time now. He’s keenly interested in her most recent case involving the thug Larry Childs (James Russo, DONNIE BRASCO), another lowlife who looks like he might escape justice and had threatened to visit Ames and her young son when he gets free.

For an indie with no big names, casting is always crucial because the film doesn’t have the luxury of getting the added push of celebrity charisma. Performance and story have to draw the viewer in from the start. Director Michael Morrissey has just that cast. Steinmeyer gives Sean a disquieting intensity. He is a “hero,” but is he right? Steinmeyer helps create the ambiguity by being smart and slightly unhinged at the same time. Henao might seem too beautiful to be a cop, but she makes Ames a woman married to her tough job like Mariska Hargitay brings to her detective role on LAW & ORDER: SVU. She’s also aided by being teamed with Daniel Stewart Sherman as her partner Gary Stenson, who is her complete opposite, which provides great comic relief. And finally, Sage has the tough role of being on the opposite course as his son. But can he save his boy from the darkness?

What kind of person actually goes out to commit what they believe are justifiable murders? Are they motivated by justice or revenge? If it’s the latter is it justifiable? BOY WONDER asks these questions right up until the end. The answers get less clear as more details of Sean’s life are revealed to us and him. If he is guilty or innocent you have to decide.

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Roland Emmerich is best known for destroying the world in films like INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and 2012. This period political thriller is the furthest from his other work as any film he has done. It’s also easily his best film. Do I believe in its central premise that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays? Not any more than I believe that Shakespeare based ROMEO AND JULIET one his own love affair with a noble woman who dreamed of acting.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave, JULIA), the stage was seen ripe with sedition. The problem was that the queen loved plays, so her handlers William Cecil (David Thewlis, HARRY POTTER) and his hunchback son Robert (Edward Hogg, 2004’s ALFIE) had to tread lightly in their censorship campaign. Amid this backdrop, Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans, NOTTING HILL), the son-in-law of William Cecil, writes plays in secret. After watching the work of Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto, BRIGHT STAR), the nobleman, who is wasting away his inheritance, commands the playwright to stage his work under the writer’s name. Unwilling to take the risk, the opportunistic actor William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall, SHAUN OF THE DEAD) begins to claim he is the author of such works as HENRY VI, MACBETH and HAMLET.

I, in general, do not believe in mass conspiracies because conspiracies need humans to carry them out and humans talk. Oxfordian theorists read a lot into the work of Shakepeare to find parallels to the life of De Vere just like Nostradamus scholars force history into the psychic’s writings. And any proof to the other side is just proof of the conspiracy at work. That said, seen as an ingenious work of alternative historical fiction, the film works wonders.

Emmerich sets up his players well. De Vere is a passionate man who needs to express himself through writing. His place in society forces him to do so anonymously. He has been educated and seen the behind-the-scenes workings of the court. In witnessing the corruption of the Cecils, he wants to support the succession claim of the Earl of Essex (Sam Reid, TV’s MI-5). He tells the young impressionable Earl of Southampton (Xavier Samuel, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE) that the pen is mightier than the sword.

De Vere is a tortured genius who puts many of the tragedies of his life into his work. As a young man the character is played by Jamie Campbell Bower (SWEENEY TODD) at a time when he fancies the Queen, played by Joely Richardson (THE PATRIOT). If De Vere has a weakness it is his own hubris. He looks down upon the commoner Johnson, who he chose to stage his plays because the writer had no voice of his own. Jealousy starts to brew. Johnson becomes envious of the work De Vere produces and the fame that the illiterate Shakespeare receives for it. De Vere is too tormented by the applause given his work that is directed toward another unworthy man.

Both Ifans and Bower bring drive and obsession to the character. De Vere is a man who cares about ideas and how they can change the world. He knows the power and wants to exploit it, but the forces conspiring against him know secrets that he couldn’t imagine. The story takes on the scope of a Greek tragedy.

Mother and daughter, Redgrave and Richardson, also give their queen passion. She cherishes the freedom that plays bring and the truth they so often speak. At times she comes off as a pawn, but in the end she is the queen. Redgrave makes us believe that Queen Elizabeth I is a woman who has endured a great deal of heartache and sacrifice over her lifetime, but holds onto youthful delights as much as she can.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

De Vere plays a nobleman, a scholar, a murderer, a lover, a husband, a father and a rebel over the course of his life. But I guess you have to be all of those in order to be a great playwright. The same can be said of the real Shakespeare who continues to inspire the imagination in ways that he might never have imagined.

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J.C. Chandor’s debut feature dramatizes the 2008 economic meltdown. You don’t need to know what derivatives or equity swaps or mortgage-backed securities are to understand what is going on. But if you do know, you’ll know how much the film gets right. This isn’t a film filled with boardroom conspiracies like Oliver Stone proposed in WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS; this is a story of survival and how ugly that can be.

Set at a historic investment firm, not too far removed from Lehman Brothers, layoffs have started. Downsizing. On his way out Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci, THE LOVELY BONES) hands his underling Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto, STAR TREK) a Flash drive with what he was working on and says, “Be careful.” Peter is a new risk analyst; he’s a trained rocket scientist, but the pay on Wall Street is much better. He spends the night looking over the data and what he finds isn’t pretty.

First Peter calls in his friend Seth Bregman (Penn Badgley, EASY A), a guy who is preoccupied with what everyone else is making, and Will Emerson (Paul Bettnay, CREATION), who he assumes is his new boss. When Will sees the numbers he calls his boss Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey, AMERICAN BEAUTY). And so begins a long night of the bad news trickling up the chain of command till and an early morning meeting is called and the CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons, REVERSAL OF FORTUNE) is helicoptered in. Tuld asks for Peter to explain the problem in plain English, which he then boils down to the company is holding a big bag of crap. So he asks his guys to sell off all of the bags of crap as quickly as possible before those who buy them know what’s even in the bag.

Sam has problems with the idea of asking his brokers to dump toxic assets on to their clients. He asks John, “will anyone buy anything from us after today?” John doesn’t care. He knows what they are doing will put some suckers out of business. He knows that his brokers will be fired and won’t be trusted anywhere again, John only cares that his business isn’t the one going under. He’s still worth over a billion dollars so that’s what really matters. He’ll have a nice meal and he’ll feel better about the whole thing by the afternoon.

When something like this happens, everyone knows that the problem was a system wide failure. Wrong data was being used, because it allowed them to sleep at night on the pillow of cash everyone was making. Eric had warned his boss Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore, G.I. JANE), but she didn’t emphasize it to those above. The barrier of bad news is not always rewarded. Sam’s boss Jared Cohen (Simon Baker, TV’s THE MENTALIST) is  one of the company’s top young execs and he is only worried about keeping that title. He goes around making sure that everyone is willing to play ball.

The script presents interesting character dynamics. Quinto’s character is the innocent who just likes playing with numbers. He’s looking to others for what’s right, but he’s beginning to realize no one knows what is right or doesn’t want to know. Bregman is the flip side. All he cares about is the money and only gets frightened when his job might be on the line. Spacey’s Sam is the veteran whose dog has just died, literally and figuratively. Will is pragmatic and kind to his friends, but when it comes right down to it he loves the game and doesn’t care what happens to those who don’t play. Jared and Sarah are cold bastards. Irons gives Tuld a rarified quality. He is a man with great power who doesn’t try to intimidate people with that power. He lives by the idea that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar and believes money tastes better than honey.

Toward the end Irons lists all the stock market crashes and tells Sam that it always happens because they can’t help themselves and no one is there to stop them. Hubris is the downfall of so many men. But when you have a great deal of cash you can pay someone to fall on your sword for you, which results in the little people bleeding out.

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Wayward souls are often the prey of sociopaths. They either turn into victims or accomplices or something in the middle. Cult leaders from Charles Manson to Jim Jones have used the veneer of family and community to twist people’s minds into believing terrible things. They make it too scary to leave. The outside world becomes foreign. So how can one cope if they do get away?

Martha (Elizabeth Olsen, PEACE, LOVE, & MISUNDERSTANDING) is such a young woman. She flees from Patrick (John Hawkes, WINTER’S BONE) a much older man who leads a family of young men and women on a rural farm. She doesn’t really know where she is. The other members follow her. Watts (Brady Corbet, 2007’s FUNNY GAMES), one of the members, finds her at a diner and tells her to come home. He doesn’t force her, but the impression that if she doesn’t something bad will happen to her is strongly implied.

Martha calls her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson, SERENITY) who she hasn’t talked to in two years. Lucy hears the fear in her voice and drives three hours to pick her up and take her back to her vacation home in Connecticut. Martha doesn’t want to talk about her ordeal; she just wants to sleep. The lasting effects of the mind games Martha has endured come out in little inappropriate gestures. The severity increases over time, which puts a strain on the relationship between Lucy and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy, TV’s THE BIG C), an up and coming architect.

Writer/director Sean Durkin creates an interesting dichotomy between the communal life Martha lived in on the farm and the upscale posh of her sister and brother-in-law. Just because Martha has left the cult doesn’t mean she has left all the ideas behind. Patrick’s philosophy has the members taking care of each other and sharing openly. It’s powerful to Martha, a woman who lost her parents at a young age. The “normal” world makes her feel uneasy and confined. Durkin creates a real fear that Martha may choose to go back, because the real world no long gets her.

Patrick is a patient and devious man, who certainly uses HELTER SKELTER as a manual for running his commune. When Martha first comes to live there, he gives her a new name, Marcy May, which just reinforces the rejection of Martha’s former self. For the first time, she feels completely accepted and un-judged. When things start to get strange, the other women, such as the mama bear Katie (Maria Dizzia, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED), help shepherd the new recruit through the experience much like a “big” helps a pledge through an initiation into a sorority. Only sorority rituals don’t always involve drugs and orgies.

Olsen, who yes is the little sister of the Olsen Twins, gives an Oscar worthy performance filled with subtle paranoia. Every so often she lets down her hardened guard and sunny innocence peeks through. Olsen makes us feel all that she has lost in these simple moments. As she tries, often unsuccessfully, to assimilate back into the real world, she flashes back to her time in the cult. Memories start to meld with dreams and her sanity is pushed to the edge. We are gripped with what could have been the breaking point that pushed her to leave. As time goes on, Durkin makes the transitions between the vacation home and flashbacks to the farm more fluid, blurring the line between the two. Often we have transitioned long before we know it and it startles us when we catch up. It’s great direction that puts us into the emotions of Martha.

The name Marlene is another name Martha goes by that is revealed toward the end and highlights the chilling nature of Patrick’s pathology. Those well versed in the Manson family will see many parallels, which for me became too obvious and pulled me out of this fictional story at times. Nonetheless, this is still the best film I’ve seen on cults and the mind games they play on their victims. The most interesting part is the after effects. While well meaning, Lucy is ill equipped to de-program her little sister. Bourgeois morality and a Xanax aren’t going to make Martha stop looking over her shoulder and open up. At one point a frustrated Lucy asks her sister what happened to her and she replies I don’t know. The question Martha is really answering is how did this happen to me?

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The tag line for the film is that it will do for skiing what JAWS did for swimming. Now in no way is it in the same league as Steven Spielberg’s classic, but it’s certainly on the same field with films like OPEN WATER, which found a couple left behind in shark-infested water on a scuba trip. The action for this tense horror/thriller moves the action to a ski lift in the sub-freezing cold.

Joe Lynch (Shawn Ashmore, X-MEN) and Dan Walker (Kevin Zegers, DAWN OF THE DEAD) are best friends who have planned a snowboarding/skiing trip. Joe is upset that Dan has brought along his novice girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell, FINAL DESTINATION 5). Dan is too cheap to pay for lift tickets so he has Parker charm the lift operator to let them on. Big mistake. Tensions were running high from the start and they only come to the breaking point when the threesome is accidentally left on the lift after closing.

Adam Green, who is best known in horror circles for his campy HATCHET series, goes the opposite way with this film. It certainly has it’s gross out moments, but the focus is more on interpersonal conflict and dread. Green takes his time to establish the dynamics between the characters. It’s actually surprising to see this much personality in characters in a scary movie.

Now, Green does have to set up a complex scenario of mishaps to get his premise off the ground, but it never destroys the credibility. So many scenarios these days are ruined by the prevalence of cellphones. The complications of being trapped on a ski lift are mined extremely well. The height and the cold are just the start of their worries. Frozen metal is far more gruesome here than when Flick stuck his tongue to the flagpole in A CHRISTMAS STORY. There are perils to climbing down that the layperson might not even think of. And there is a pack of wolves roaming below once they get to the ground. Whenever you think there is some common sense element Green has ignored, he addresses it satisfyingly. A CAT driver is a bit stupid, but you have to have stupid people in horror films, right?

In actuality, I cared little about the contrivances, because I cared so much more about the characters and their situation. I wanted to see how these characters reacted, fought and come together over the situation. Resentments spur actions that might have gone differently under other conditions. Each action that they take pushes the next reaction, driving the plot and suspense. It’s one of those stories that make you wonder what you’d do in the same situation.

Who decided not to buy lift tickets? Who should and shouldn’t be there? Who did or didn’t decide to take dangerous actions? Each question makes one double guess each move. Guilt might be one of the most dangerous elements attacking these friends.

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Despite having the superhero in the title, this animated feature seems less like the Dark Knight’s story and more like that of James Gordon, who at this time is new to the Gotham police department. Based on what is hailed as a seminal comic series from writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli, the transition from the page to the screen is faithful, but also highlights the differences between mediums.

Bruce Wayne (Ben McKenzie, TV’s SOUTHLAND) was returned to Gotham from training abroad. He has begun the preparation for becoming the vigilante, but hasn’t found his identity yet. Jim Gordon (Bryan Cranston, TV’s BREAKING BAD) is the new lieutenant in town, having been exiled to the most corrupt city after smoking out police corruption in his last post. His wife Barbara (Grey DeLisle, TV’s THE FAIRLY ODDPARENTS) is pregnant and he is guilty to bring a new child into this dirty, grim world.

The stories of Wayne and Gordon cross over the course, but they don’t seem to have the same weight. Both are interesting, but Gordon’s seems the most original and nuanced. Cranston provides a wonderful voice performance, giving the tormented police officer a personality in turmoil. The corruption of the city starts to creep into his soul and that’s not good when your partner looks like the beautiful Sarah Essen (Katee Sackhoff, TV’s BATTLESTAR GALACTICA). He has the nearly impossible task of being true to himself, while navigating the twisted politics of the police department that is not beneath fire bombing innocent people. Now he is tasked with hunting down a giant bat.

McKenzie doesn’t have the weight of voice for the Batman role that others have, notably Bruce Greenwood from last year’s wonderful BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD. As the fledgling hero, he makes mistakes that get him hurt and trapped. You get a glimpse at him learning on the job. What I felt was missing was a more in depth look at his foreign training. It’s a problem that comes with being slavishly faithful to the source. Also it seems less fresh because we’ve seen Batman’s origin before and the struggling new hero has been handled in various versions before. The comic was first, but BATMAN BEGINS and the imitators have made it to film first.

The third most important character is Gotham. The story does a great job of setting the tone of hellish city. We really feel the great slope that Gordon and Batman have to climb. There isn’t one villain, but a city full of them. The corrupt police force is led by Commissioner Loeb (Jon Polito, MILLER’S CROSSING). He is just another dinner guest of gangster Carmine Falcone (Alex Rocco, THE GODFATHER). Prostitutes and pimps fill the streets. But the Batman inspires one to put on a cat suit and trade tricks for burglary. Selina Kyle aka Catwoman (Eliza Dushku, TV’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) seems crammed into the story a bit, but is interestingly recast as a black dominatrix.

For the most part, the comic was used as a storyboard start for the film. The pacing of a four-issue comic is so different than a film. At just little over an hour, more time could have been taken to create more tension. But one has to respect the devotion to the source and the quiet moments that are not common for animation made in the U.S. The origin of Gordon really makes him a true partner for Batman. They have the same goals and need each other. Gotham is not a place for angels… but these flawed men will do.

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