Sometime in the not-too-distant future, boxing has been outlawed and replaced by fighting matches with robots. Big robots. Hulking, rock 'em, sock 'em mechanical robots. But if those machines are cutting edge, <em>Real Steel</em> sticks to an old-fashioned style of storytelling, with a tale of a down-and-out fight manager (Hugh Jackman) looking for a good 'bot to get back in the game, and get back out of debt. Hearts are further tugged by the arrival of this guy's 11-year-old son (Dakota Goyo), who hasn't seen his dad in many years but now needs tending. There's something endearing about the way nobody ever pauses to remark on the fact that they are in the presence of giant remote-controlled prizefighting robots; it's taken for granted in this cockeyed universe. Loosely inspired by a Richard Matheson-penned episode of <em>The Twilight Zone</em>, Shawn Levy's film is lavishly mounted and fairly ridiculous--although in this case, the human interactions are more preposterous and formulaic than the fun robot action. Jackman plays to his roguish strengths, Evangeline Lilly (<em>Lost</em>) gets the perfunctory love interest role, and the villains are uncomplicatedly hissable, from Jackman's good ol' boy rival (Kevin Durand) to the heavily accented owners (Olga Fonda, Karl Yune) of the most fearsome of robots, the undefeated Zeus. If you can imagine <em>Rocky</em> restaged with a pile of spare parts, you might be the audience for <em>Real Steel</em>. <em>--Robert Horton</em>

Based on the book by John Boyne, <em>The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas</em> didn’t really get the box office recognition it deserves on its theatrical release, struggling to find a foothold amidst a stampede of blockbusters. But this is a film that, surely, is ripe for discovery on DVD.

Directed with care and diligence by Mark Herman, whose CV includes the excellent <em>Brassed Off!</em> and <em>Little Voice</em>, <em>The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas</em> is set during the Second World War, in and around a Nazi concentration camp. It tells its tale through the eyes of two young boys. One is the son of the camp’s commandant, while the other is wearing the striped pyjamas of the title.



The two boys meet and ultimately befriend one another, and <em>The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas</em> tells the difficult story of their companionship. It does it extremely well, too, careful to understate proceedings and demonstrate a restraint that serves the subject matter well. It’s also quite a lean film, and one boasting excellent performances, including David Thewlis as the aforementioned commandant.



If <em>The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas</em> has a problem or two, they pale in comparison to its strengths. For this is a tightly directed, moving film, that does real justice to the terrific book it’s derived from. It’s not always an easy watch, but it's very memorable.--<em>Jon Foster</em>

The considerable pleasures of In Bruges begin with its title, which suggests a glumly self-important art film but actually fits a rattling-good tale of two Irish gangsters"keepin' a low profile" after a murder gone messily wrong. Bruges, the best-preserved medieval town in Belgium, is where the bearlike veteran Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and newbie triggerman Ray (Colin Farrell) have been ordered by their London boss to hole up for two weeks. As the sly narrative unfolds like a paper flower in water,"in Bruges" also becomes a state of mind, a suspended moment amid centuries-old towers and bridges and canals when even thuggish lives might experience a change in direction. And throughout, the viewer has ample opportunity to consider whose pronunciation of"Bruges" is more endearing, Gleeson's or Farrell's. The movie marks the feature writing-directing debut of playwright Martin McDonagh, whose droll meditation on sudden mortality, Six Shooter , copped the 2005 Oscar for best live-action short. Although McDonagh clearly relishes the musicality of his boyos' brogue and has written them plenty of entertaining dialogue, In Bruges is no stageplay disguised as a film. The script is deceptively casual, allowing for digressions on the newly united and briskly thriving Europe, and annexing passers-by as characters who have a way of circling back into the story with unanticipatable consequences. That includes a film crew--shooting a movie featuring, to Ray's fascination,"a midget" (Jordan Prentice)--and a fetching blond production assistant (Clémence Poésy) whose job description keeps evolving. There's one other key figure: Harry, the Cockney gang boss whose omnipotence remains unquestioned as long as he remains offscreen, back in England, as if floating in an early Harold Pinter play. Harry has reasons inextricably tender and perverse for selecting Bruges as his hirelings' destination, and eventually he emerges from the aether to express them--first as a garrulous telephone voice and then in the volatile form of Ralph Fiennes. By that point the charmed moment of suspension, already shaken by several eruptions of violence, is pretty well doomed. But In Bruges continues to surprise and satisfy right up to the end. -- Richard T. Jameson

To some, Lars and the Real Girl will play as comedy; to others, tragedy. Though Craig Gillespie ( Mr. Woodcock ) allows Lars Lindstrom (a mustachioed Ryan Gosling, miles away from Half Nelson ) a happy ending, the road is far from smooth. This rumpled Midwesterner couldn't be more miserable. His brother, Gus (Paul Schneider, All the Real Girls ), and sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer, Lovely and Amazing ), fall over themselves to cheer him up, but Lars cannot be moved; he’s been like that since childhood. Then a porn-addicted co-worker hips him to the lifelike Real Doll. The next thing everyone knows, Lars has a new girlfriend named Bianca. She's from Brazil, she's shy, and she uses a wheelchair. She's also made of silicon. (Because Lars is a devout Christian, hanky-panky is out of the question.) Since he's finally emerging from his shell, his doctor, Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), advises Gus and Karin to play along with the"delusion." Soon the whole town, including Margo (Kelli Garner), who harbors a not-so-secret crush on her officemate, gets in on the action, forcing Lars to rejoin the human race or crawl deeper into psychosis.



Written by Six Feet Under 's Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl is built around such a preposterous premise, it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Fortunately, the actors play it straight. Gosling does his best to make Lars sympathetic, but Schneider and Mortimer, fully convincing in their concern, are the true heart and soul of this odd little film. -- Kathleen C. Fennessy, Amazon.com

Love blooms and dies at the same time in the delicate dance between Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling (<em>Half Nelson</em>) and Michelle Williams (<em>Brokeback Mountain</em>). Gosling's Dean, a high-school dropout, works for a New York moving company. While relocating a frail widower into a retirement home, he spots Cindy, a nursing student who's visiting her grandmother, but the film actually begins six years later. Married with a daughter, they live in rural Pennsylvania. Heavy drinker Dean's looks are fading, while Cindy still turns heads. In his elegantly constructed second feature, writer-director Derek Cianfrance pirouettes between past and present, with each scene commenting on the next (set to the bittersweet tones of Brooklyn band Grizzly Bear). The Dean of the early years pursues Cindy, who resists at first, but a spontaneous date ends with her tap dancing (badly) and him singing (not so badly). She leaves her domineering boyfriend (Mike Vogel) for this attentive stranger, leading to scenes of intimacy that are far more suggestive than pornographic--even if the MPAA briefly rated the film NC-17. Later, when the family dog goes missing, the cracks in their marriage intensify, so Dean arranges for a night of romance, which plays out like a negative image of their first date. If the two actors, who are very good, are meant to carry equal weight, Gosling has the more difficult task. It's harder to like the clingy, insecure Dean, who loves more intensely and less wisely, but that makes Gosling's the braver performance. --<em>Kathleen C. Fennessy</em>

United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: The comfortable complacency of the British Birling family is upset when Inspector Poole (Alastair Sim) comes calling. An impoverished young working girl named Eva Smith (Jane Wenham) has committed suicide, and Poole hopes that the Birlings will help him find out why. As the evening progresses, a series of flashbacks reveal that each member of the Birling family has in some small way been responsible for Eva's demise. A twist ending adds a mystical, thought-provoking touch to the proceedings. Bryan Forbes, who plays the Birling son, matriculated into the noted director of such films as The L-Shaped Room, King Rat and The Whisperers. An Inspector Calls was based on a play by J.B. Priestley, which recently scored a huge hit when it was revived in London and New York. ...An Inspector Calls

Martin Scorsese makes a welcomed return to the mean streets (of Boston, in this case) with The Departed , hailed by many as Scorsese's best film since Casino . Since this crackling crime thriller is essentially a Scorsese-stamped remake of the acclaimed 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs , the film was intensely scrutinized by devoted critics and cinephiles, and while Scorsese's intense filmmaking and all-star cast deserve ample acclaim, The Departed is also worthy of serious re-assessment, especially with regard to what some attentive viewers described as sloppy craftsmanship (!), notably in terms of mismatched shots and jagged continuity. But no matter where you fall on the Scorsese appreciation scale, there's no denying that The Departed is a signature piece of work from one of America's finest directors, designed for maximum impact with a breathtaking series of twists, turns, and violent surprises. It's an intricate cat-and-mouse game, but this time the cat and mouse are both moles: Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is an ambitious cop on the rise, planted in the Boston police force by criminal kingpin Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a hot-tempered police cadet who's been artificially disgraced and then planted into Costigan's crime operation as a seemingly trustworthy soldier. As the multilayered plot unfolds (courtesy of a scorching adaptation by Kingdom of Heaven screenwriter William Monahan), Costigan and Sullivan conduct a volatile search for each other (they're essentially looking for"themselves") while simultaneously wooing the psychiatrist (Vera Farmiga) assigned to treat their crime-driven anxieties.

Such convenient coincidences might sink a lesser film, but The Departed is so electrifying that you barely notice the plot-holes. And while Nicholson's profane swagger is too much"Jack" and not enough"Costello," he's still a joy to watch, especially in a film that's additionally energised by memorable (and frequently hilarious) supporting roles for Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, and a host of other big-name performers. The Departed also makes clever and plot-dependent use of mobile phones, to the extent that it couldn't exist without them. Powered by Scorsese's trademark use of well-chosen soundtrack songs (from vintage rock to Puccini's operas), The Departed may not be perfect, but it's one helluva ride for moviegoers, proving popular enough to become the biggest box-office hit of Scorsese's commercially rocky career. --Jeff Shannon