BETTER LUCK TOMORROW

Just as the recent City of God seemed to transfer the GoodFellas formula to the Brazilian slums, here's a strong effort from writer-director Justin Lin that places Asian-American high school students in a similar scenario. Lin starts with the stereotype of the Asian-American kid as clean-cut, hard-working and industrious and turns it on its head. At their California school, Ben (Parry Shen) and his three buddies are straight-A students with a laundry list of extra-curricular activities (sports, school newspaper, charity events, you name it) and their pick of Ivy League universities to attend after their impending graduation. But perhaps precisely because they're pegged as harmless, these teens decide that breaking the law should be their next extra-curricular assignment -- they start off small, by selling cheat sheets to other kids, but eventually find themselves trafficking in drugs and even packing pistols. Apparently aiming for the histrionic heights of GoodFellas and Boogie Nights, Lin and his co-scripters carry their story too far -- I didn't believe the reasons and circumstances surrounding a third-act murder for one second -- but they capture teen anxiety beautifully, with a strong cast of unknowns aiding them in their effort.

CONFIDENCE

If The Good Thief represents the Old School brand of heist flicks, then Confidence serves as its New School equivalent, a picture carrying the torch for Mamet and Tarantino in its love of rapid-fire dialogue, roving camerawork and multiple plot twists. As such, it's one of the better examples of late (it overshadows Gene Hackman's Heist and Robert De Niro's The Score), even if it does run out of steam (and originality) before the end. The prime-cut cast is its strongest asset, with Edward Burns oozing charisma as a wily con artist, Paul Giamatti a welcome presence as a straight-talking member of his team, and, in a startling bit of casting, Dustin Hoffman as a venal small-time kingpin with a quick temper and a fondness for both the ladies and the gents. You also get Rachel Weisz as the requisite femme fatale and reliable Luis Guzman as a corrupt cop, but by the time Andy Garcia gets thrown into the mix late in the game as a shady government agent, it becomes clear that director James Foley (who orchestrated similar rat-a-tat-tat patter in Glengarry Glen Ross) and scripter Doug Jung have overstuffed their plates -- in this case, less probably would have been more. 1/2

HOLES

Louis Sachar's award-winning children's book might be a "must-read" among students and teachers, but the widely circulated trailer made the new screen version look like a "must-avoid." The finished product is far more engaging than the clumsy preview would lead anyone to believe -- in fact, it's good enough to be enjoyed equally by kids and their attendant parents. Sachar himself wrote the script, which focuses on the plight of hapless teen Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf of the Disney Channel's Even Stevens), who's wrongly convicted of robbery and sent to Camp Green Lake, a boys' correctional facility located in the middle of a desert. There, he and the other guys are subjected to the demands of the warden (Sigourney Weaver) and her two sidekicks (Tim Blake Nelson and a hilariously over-the-top Jon Voight), who order the boys to spend every day digging holes. Sachar and director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) have crafted a fresh comedy-drama that nicely weaves the present-day story together with related flashbacks set in the Old West (Patricia Arquette stars in this section of the film). While the ending may tie everything up a bit too tidily, there's no denying that there's real imagination at work here.

CURRENT RELEASES

ANGER MANAGEMENT

After delivering subtle, shaded performances in The Pledge and About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson reverts back to his familiar "wild and crazy guy" persona in Anger Management -- and that's actually not a bad thing. Nicholson gamely gets into the swing of the satire as Buddy Rydell, an unorthodox therapist whose methods threaten to unnerve his latest patient, a meek businessman (Adam Sandler) railroaded into subjecting himself to the good doctor's anger management program. It's doubtful we'll ever see Sandler tackling Hamlet or Willy Loman, but both last fall's Punch-Drunk Love and now Anger Management demonstrate that he can be an engaging presence when he drags himself away from projects aimed at mentally deficient frat boys. Even if some of the situations seem overly familiar (the Yankee Stadium climax) or needlessly protracted (ditto), the movie zips by on the strength of some big laughs, sharply cast supporting roles (notably John Turturro and an unbilled Heather Graham) and the two well-matched stars at its core.

BASIC The satisfaction derived from such "gotcha!" titles as Seven and The Usual Suspects is that these movies successfully take us for a perplexing ride before zapping us with a surprise ending that feels absolutely right. Conversely, many similar brain twisters have fallen flat from the start by offering supposed plot turns that are obvious 10 minutes into the picture. Basic doesn't exactly reside in either camp: Not even Nostradamus could have predicted every twist in this convoluted thriller, yet in the end, we don't feel fulfilled as much as happy to get out of the auditorium alive. Initially, the intrigue is entertaining, as an ex-Army Ranger (John Travolta) in Panama is tapped to find out what went wrong on a military exercise that led to the death of a reviled sergeant (Samuel L. Jackson). Two witnesses (Brian Van Holt and insufferable Giovanni Ribisi) offer differing versions of what went down, but any hope of a modern-day Rashomon is soon dashed as the movie gets bogged down in a haphazard series of twists, turns, backslides and pirouettes -- few of which make sense after the whole story is revealed.

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM You don't need a whole hand to count the number of American movies that have centered on women's soccer -- a single cuticle will do just fine (that would be 1992's Ladybugs, a dismal Rodney Dangerfield comedy). But now, our mates on the other side of the pond have come through with this charming British film that's been rocking the rest of the world and deserves to become a sleeper hit stateside. Our heroine is teenage Jess Bhamra (newcomer Parminder Nagra), a member of an Indian family living in London. Jess loves nothing so much as the game of soccer, but her parents (Anupam Kher and Shaheen Khan) don't approve, preferring that she pursue a more traditional life (i.e., learn to cook and marry a nice Indian boy). Her new friend Jules (Keira Knightley) invites her to join the local girls' team, but Jess' newfound happiness hits a brick wall in the form of her parents, who soon forbid her from playing soccer at all. "Feel-good" movies often get denigrated because they sometimes force audiences to leave their brains in the lobby in order to enjoy the merriment. This sharp culture-clash/coming-of-age tale doesn't share that problem: It's "feel-good" without being "feel-stupid."

GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS Director James Cameron heads back to the subject that made him "king of the world" a few years ago, only this time he tackles the Titanic in a documentary format. Ghosts of the Abyss, created specifically for IMAX theaters and regular movie houses that can accommodate its 3-D presentation (here, it's playing at the Regal), finds Cameron and crew (including actor Bill Paxton) employing all the state-of-the-art technology at their disposal to travel underwater and take us inside the legendary shipwreck. Cameron's adherence to rigid documentary dogma is about as reliable as Michael Moore's -- some exterior water shots were clearly staged (Cameron has admitted as much in interviews), while Paxton is hamming it up for the camera -- and the 3-D effects, while better than those in, say, Jaws 3-D, still leave something to be desired (there are a surprising number of shadowy double images). But whenever Cameron leaves the technical tricks, awkward recreations and computer graphics behind and focuses solely on the magnificent remains of the Titanic, the movie is awe-inspiring. 1/2

HEAD OF STATE If there was ever a time when we could use a raucous political satire to shake things up -- to stick it to an insidious and evil administration -- well, this is clearly that time. Unfortunately, Head of State clearly isn't that movie. Rather than grab the political bull by the horns -- like Warren Beatty's Bulworth a few years back or Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine a few months ago -- Chris Rock (serving as star, director, co-writer and co-producer) is content to make a comedy that could easily play on network TV as a pilot for a proposed sit-com (My Big Fat Freak Election, anyone?). Still, for a movie that traffics in timidity rather than temerity, this is better than Rock's recent output for the simplest of reasons: It offers laughs, something his other comedies forgot to do. He plays a Washington, DC, alderman who's picked to run for the top office after the presidential and vice presidential candidates are killed when their planes crash into each other. Nobody expects much from the rookie politico, but once he starts speaking from the heart rather than the script, his poll numbers begin to climb. A handful of inspired gags goose a shoddy production, with Bernie Mac providing an additional lift as Rock's brother, a bail bondsman who becomes his younger sibling's unlikely running mate. 1/2

IRREVERSIBLE Offhand, I'd be hard pressed to think of a motion picture that I've enjoyed as little as Irreversible and yet still felt compelled to give a positive review. Initially, writer-director Gaspar Noe's controversial French import might seem like a knockoff of Memento: Like that twisty neo-noir, this picture plays around with time, starting at the end of the story and proceeding until it reaches the beginning. The movie gets off to a frenzied start -- an apocalypse of sensory overload -- as two men (Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel) bust into a gay nightclub searching for a mysterious man. This sequence ends with a murder that ranks as one of the most disgusting and graphic ever put on screen, but that's just a warm-up for a subsequent 10-minute scene in which we witness a lovely woman (Monica Bellucci) get raped and beaten. Needless to say, these two set-pieces have led to viewer walkouts across the globe, yet after this point, the film (still moving backward in time) turns mellow and reflective, and what initially appeared like a Death Wish wanna-be with a gimmick turns out to be a thought-provoking drama about the very nature of time, the frightening randomness of the little choices we make, and whether our destinies are indeed laid out for us or in our own hands. This movie is ugly, brutal and disturbing, but those who can appreciate Noe's intentions might want to take a chance.

A MAN APART A Traffic for the action crowd, A Man Apart takes an unblinking view of drug cartels before eventually revealing its true colors as a generic shoot-'em-up yarn. Vin Diesel, whose magnetism blossoms only when he's playing flippant anti-heroes (Pitch Black, XXX), is all chiseled nobility in this film, and the result is a dull performance that points out the actor's limitations. He's cast as Sean Vetter, a DEA agent out for revenge after his wife (Jacqueline Obradors) is killed by a drug lord known only as Diablo. Director F. Gary Gray has certainly proven himself to be an effective director of action flicks (The Negotiator, Set It Off), but here his talents have deserted him completely. Like View from the Top, this one's been sitting on a studio shelf for quite some time, suggesting that Hollywood must presently be engaging in its own version of a yard sale. 1/2

PHONE BOOTH It's only April, yet Colin Farrell has already appeared in as many movies this year as Daniel Day-Lewis has headlined over the course of the past decade. Following a co-starring role in The Recruit and a supporting turn in Daredevil, Farrell finds himself top-billed in this efficient drama that was delayed because of the real-life sniper shootings. He plays Stu Shepard, an obnoxious publicist who gets pinned in a phone booth by a sniper (Kiefer Sutherland) who has already offed a pedophile and a ruthless CEO and now wants to take Stu to task for his boorish behavior. OK, let's get the idiocy out of the way: In a city the size of New York, determining that a publicist whose primary flaw is his rudeness should be third in line to die would be like learning there's a special room in Hell reserved for Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and...Pete Rose. Get past this dubious logic, however, and what's left is a taut psychological thriller that's directed for maximum impact by Joel Schumacher and vigorously performed by Farrell. With a crisp running time of 80 minutes, Phone Booth knows exactly when it's time to clear the line.

Home Theater

STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWNOne of the best films of 2002, this captivating documentary pays loving tribute to that group of unknown musicians collectively known as The Funk Brothers. Basically Berry Gordy's "house band" during the heyday of the Detroit sound, these men backed up such Motown luminaries as Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye as they produced hit after hit between 1959 and 1972. Director Paul Justman doesn't rely on talking heads, though in this instance that would have been entirely justified, given the rich anecdotes spun by the surviving musicians. Instead, he mixes present-day interviews with archival photos, a few dramatic reenactments and footage from a recent concert in which the Funk Brothers reunited to play Motown classics fronted by the likes of Ben Harper, Bootsy Collins and Joan Osborne (soaring through a lovely version of "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted"). The two-disc DVD set is simply superb, with amped-up sound, a groovy menu design and an array of bonus material, including deleted scenes, audio commentary by Justman, multi-angle jam sessions, and more. 1/2

RABBIT-PROOF FENCE

One of those "based on a true story" sagas that showcase humanity at its vilest, this concerns itself with an Australian policy (in effect until 1970) that allowed the government to take half-caste children (part white, part Aborigine) away from their Aboriginal families and integrate them into white society. Here, the focus is three girls ages 14, 10 and 8 (earnestly played by non-professionals Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury and Laura Monaghan); stolen from their moms and sent to a school 1,200 miles away, they soon escape and attempt to walk the entire distance back home. More heartbreaking than uplifting, this PG offering is nevertheless a strong rental suggestion for families with older kids. DVD features include audio commentary by director Phillip Noyce, actor Kenneth Branagh, composer Peter Gabriel and others, and a making-of documentary. DARKNESS FALLS

The sort of lazy endeavor that gives shockers a bad name, this dreadful flick -- one of the first studio tax write-offs of 2003 -- concerns itself with the legend of the Tooth Fairy, an elderly woman who was wrongly lynched 150 years earlier and whose spirit has since terrorized the coastal town of Darkness Falls, killing anybody who dares to look at her directly. This junk makes less sense as it ambles along, constantly changing the rules of its own myths and tripping over itself in an effort to provide the sort of fake scares that are emblematic of bad horror films. DVD features include deleted scenes and a making-of special. -- Matt Brunson