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A sampling of reviews of movies playing during the second week of the Three Rivers Film Festival:
A mother slaps one of them, while her son's pregnant girlfriend wails hysterically. A bitter, distraught father challenges, "Why aren't you there? Why aren't you dead?" and spits in the visitor's face.
Welcome to the Army's Casualty Notification service. It's as if an emotional IED goes off every time an officer knocks on the door of an unsuspecting stranger about to become the NOK or next of kin.
Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), still recovering from injuries received in Iraq, has a few months left in the service when he is assigned to the team and Capt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson). A commanding officer tells Will, "The mission is not simply important; it is sacred."
Director and co-writer Oren Moverman has found a way to harness Foster's volcanic power, hands Harrelson one of his best roles, and manages to convey tension among troops, the disorientation of returning home and (through a character played by Samantha Morton) the fissure that can open in a marriage with each tour.
As with "The Hurt Locker," this is a searing portrait of war but told entirely from the heartbreak of the home front.
R for language and some sexual content/nudity.
-- Barbara Vancheri, PG movie editor
"American Harmony" follows more than a dozen men's journeys to the Super Bowl of barbershop singing.
The 86-minute documentary, directed by Aengus James, takes audiences to the International Championships of Barbershop Singing, an annual event that has brought barbershop's best under one roof for more than the past 70 years.
The film highlights the 2005-08 competitions but focuses on the 2006 event, regarded by many as the most competitive and controversial competition in the Barbershop Harmony Society's history.
In 2006, Max Q, a quartet of former barbershop champions, is seeded first heading into the competition. Newer groups OC Times and Vocal Spectrum are hot on their heels, charming crowds with their suave looks and savvy vocals. Thirty-year veteran quartet Reveille hopes a gold medal is still within reach despite a member's declining health.
A win at internationals means a quartet's name will go down in barbershop history. Will Max Q finally seize the gold after years of falling short? Will the newcomers win in an upset? Suspense builds with every chorus these quartets belt out.
G in nature. Local barbershop quartets will sing in the lobby prior to screenings.
-- Sara Bauknecht, PG staff writer
The Welsh village looks as if it should be dusted with snow and transported to a Christmas card. But when hitman Milo (Damian Lewis) hides out there, masquerading as a baker, the villagers wonder what he's really up to.
It turns out the prospect of a professional assassin in their midst is as appetizing as, well, a homemade chocolate cake. This dark comedy explores grudge matches and crazy competitions in the gardening and assassin worlds, unhappy marriages and, most of all, second chances.
British actor Lewis ("Band of Brothers," NBC's "Life") plays Milo with a light touch and his brother, Gareth Lewis, directs the same way. The entire movie is like a tray of doughnuts dipped in a sugar glaze. Even when someone bites the dust, the villager is so loathsome that you can't help but cheer and not feel a lick of guilt.
R in nature because of subject matter.
-- Barbara Vancheri
"Don't send the police. You send us them Freedom Boys," callers in life-threatening distress would say back in the day.
From the late 1960s to 1975, the "Freedom Boys" were pioneering paramedics from Freedom House Enterprises Inc. who served the Hill District and Oakland and also transported fragile patients from outlying areas. They were life savers and anything but the label once applied to them: unemployable.
Under the tutelage of Dr. Peter Safar, "the father of CPR," these men brought the hospital to the street instead of relying on the "scoop and run" strategy.
They were a largely African-American corps who went into housing projects, shooting galleries and the homes of white Pittsburghers, such as the heart-attack patient who refused to be touched by the black men who ultimately saved her. In 1975, the city decided to launch its own ambulance network and many trailblazers were, essentially, kicked to the curb.
Although "Freedom House" relies on some archival stills and footage, it's hobbled by too many talking heads. Nevertheless, the filmmakers were lucky to document recollections of some participants who have since died.
And it's an eye-opener about a momentous chapter of medical history that laid the groundwork for what happens today when someone calls 911 and a well-staffed and stocked ambulance (not a station wagon or hearse) rolls up, ready and able to save a life.
Unrated but PG in nature.
-- BarbaraVancheri
On his daughter Laila's birthday, Abu Laila -- a serious, middle-aged judge who drives a taxi to make a living -- just wants to finish work in time to buy his daughter a present and cake and get home by 8 p.m. to celebrate with his family. But in the Palestinian territories, where they live, such normalcy isn't easy to come by.
That's the message of "Laila's Birthday," written and directed by Rasha Masharawi. The film follows Abu Laila (which literally means "Father of Laila") as he encounters numerous small disasters that hinder his job and jeopardize his daughter's birthday celebration. "Laila's Birthday" is also a dark comedy that brings wry humor to these disasters -- an explosion, a lost cell phone, a brief spat with a passenger -- that make life in the West Bank insufferable. In a memorable scene, when Abu Laila nearly runs over a pedestrian, the alarmed man shouts, "Run me over to free me from this life!"
Abu Laila's situation is far from normal. Though he lives in a handsome house with ample room, the former judge is forced to be a taxi driver to make ends meet. He visits the Ministry of Justice every day, seeking a judicial post, but he is always faced with the same answer from government officials, "Come back tomorrow." By the end of the film, his heretofore annoyed yet accepting attitude reaches a breaking point.
Interestingly, Masharawi doesn't include any Israelis in the film, choosing, instead, to focus on the Palestinians and the problems they must deal with every day. Toward the end, we see that, although Palestinians are undoubtedly affected by their neighbors, they alone must take control and decide their fate.
Not rated. In Arabic with English subtitles.
-- Elham Khatami for the Post-Gazette
As odd couples go, Marek and Tomo make Oscar and Felix look like the Doublemint Twins.
Uh ... a little too much cross-cultural referencing there? Let's try again:
Two lonely 16-year-olds -- one small for his age, the other big -- do some unlikely bonding in "Somers Town," a charming little British dramedy with a gritty city setting. Both boys are newly arrived in central London, and there their similarities end.
Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is the artless dodger, a homeless runaway from the Midlands. Polish immigrant Marek (Piotr Jagiello) lives with his dad in Somers Town, a working-class district bordering on the vast old St Pancras and Kings Cross train stations. After their chance introduction, Tomo invites himself to take up residence in Marek's flat -- as long as he can keep hidden from Marek's hard-drinking father.
When not dodging dad, our odd couple get a couple of odd jobs for a very odd neighbor (sanding and peddling stolen beach chairs -- in London?) while mooning over sexy French waitress Maria, who sweetly tolerates their attentions.
Boredom, bullies, booze -- alienation and love trouble -- fill the crisp 70 minutes of this coming-of-age tale, shot by director Shane Meadows in "living" black and white with many long, continuous, single takes. The semi-improvised performances by Jagiello -- his gentle, tentative Marek struggling with proper English -- and Turgoose -- his blustery Tomo's face and furrowed brow looking far older than his years -- won them a joint "Best Actor" award at the Tribeca Festival.
"Somers Town" has the surface look of '50s British angry young men pix but sans most of the anger. So you fall in and out with your mates, your girl and your dad. Father Knows Least here. You just might fall back in with them by the time of a sentimental fairytale ending.
-- Barry Paris, PG film critic emeritus
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