Headhunters (Morten Tyldum) is an energetic Norwegian cat-and-mouse thriller about a corporate recruiter who moonlights as an art thief (Aksel Hennie). When his scheme goes wrong, our hero must go on the run – or at least that’s why he thinks he’s running. The story carries a streak of black comedy that nicely distinguishes it from those dour Stieg Larsson adaptations. Hennie makes a great anti-hero and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is charmingly casual as his psychotic pursuer. Director Tyldum keeps the plot twisting in a manner that feels both surprising and logical, but be warned: at least two speedily improvised escapes are decidedly not for the squeamish. Subtitled. 101 min.
Rating: NNNN (NW)
Opens May 4 at Varsity. See here for times.
Indie Game: The Movie – A Hot Docs Live Presentation (James Swirsky, Lisanne Pajot) is the live broadcast of the Hot Docs screening of Swirsky and Pajot’s film about independent video game designers and programmers, complete with a Q&A with the directors. See nowtoronto.com/hotdocs for our review of the film.
Rating: NNNN (RS)
Opens May 3 at Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Mississauga. See here for times.
Marvel’s The Avengers (Joss Whedon) is, quite simply, an epic win – it’s tremendous fun, sprinting through its gargantuan adventure on a mixture of adrenaline, glee and wise-assery. That’s mostly due to director and co-writer Whedon, whose ability to render large, distinct casts of characters is exactly what’s required for a movie of this scale. Everything that happens is grounded in who these people are, not what they can do. And he’s the first filmmaker to crack the problem of the Hulk by remembering that Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is a scientist, not a fugitive, and that the Hulk has a personality too. I’d have been happy to watch these actors sit around eating pastries for two and a half hours – especially Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr., who have a wonderful chemistry as a pair of brainiacs with very different control issues – but Thor’s brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has to go and launch an alien invasion of Earth, forcing them to suit up and fight back. Honestly? I didn’t mind that either. Some subtitles. 143 min.
Rating: NNNN (NW)
Opens May 4 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Coliseum Mississauga, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Empire Theatres at Empress Walk, Grande – Steeles, Humber Cinema, Kennedy Commons 20, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Varsity. See here for times.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (John Madden) is a middling, manipulative movie that’s saved by a first-rate cast. Various British retirees get lured to a once glorious, now dilapidated Indian hotel for seniors run by a spirited but scattered manager (Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel). Of course, not long after they check in, their late-in-life epiphanies begin. The fragile widow (Judi Dench) slowly gains self-confidence by working at a call centre, while the racist housekeeper (Maggie Smith) learns to get along with those nasty dark-skinned people. Tom Wilkinson’s is the most intriguing character, a man haunted by a traumatic experience when he lived in India as a young man. It all amounts to a master class in screen acting, with Dench and a terrifically understated Bill Nighy (as a hen-pecked civil servant) taking top honours. Too bad the various subplots – including an undeveloped one about the hotel manager’s overbearing mother and his girlfriend – make it longer than it needs to be. 124 min.
Rating: NNN (GS)
Opens May 4 at Varsity. See here for times.
Detachment (Tony Kaye) will divide audiences. Some will admire its style and commitment others will find it hopelessly pretentious Darren Aronofsky-lite. Adrien Brody plays Henry, a substitute teacher who’d rather move from classroom to classroom than make real connections. But women have no problem attaching themselves to him. A colleague (Christina Hendricks) appreciates his teaching gifts, an artistically inclined student falls in love with him, and the teenage street prostitute he shelters (Sami Gayle) literally moves in. His students are angry, and the teachers – including Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner and James Caan – are desperate. Henry could be a game changer, but a childhood trauma has ground down his sense of self. The film has a fiercely independent spirit – off-kilter dialogue, disturbing flashbacks, animated commentaries – and expresses real rage at a deteriorating public school system. I was riveted, even if the story does give out in the end. 97 min.
Rating: NNN (SGC)
Opens May 4 at Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Planet Yoga (Carlos Ferrand) offers a thorough breakdown of the ancient discipline, but with the absence of any perspective, it will bore you into a whole other state of tranquility. Director/narrator Ferrand promises to explore whether yoga is a fad, sect or something more, yet the practice is never questioned. He interviews instructors, swamis and other folks who swear by its profound effect on their mind and body. If a religion like Scientology, also based on spiritual rehabilitation, can have its critics, why can’t yoga be interrogated for its cult-like following? At one point Ferrand simply states that “50 million North Americans cannot be wrong.” A typically naive statement. 87 min.
Rating: N (RS)
Opens May 4 at Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
The Metropolitan Opera: Das Rheingold Encore is an encore presentation of the Met’s production (directed by Canada’s Robert Lepage) of the first opera in Wagner’s Ring cycle. 195 min.
Opens May 9 at Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Yonge. See here for times.
One Man, Two Guvnors – Encore Presentation is a repeat broadcast from London’s National Theatre of Richard Bean’s English version of Goldoni’s Italian comedy, starring James Corden. 160 min.
Opens May 5 at Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Yonge. See here for times.
Wagner’s Dream (Susan Froemke) looks at Canadian director Robert Lepage’s controversial staging of the monumental Ring cycle for the Metropolitan Opera. 115 min.
Opens May 7 at Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Yonge. See here for times.
