Cut Bank

A sleepwalk-thriller in a remote town. With a good cast; John Malkovitch, Billy Bob Thornton, Liam Hemsworth, Bruce Dern, and the Kristen Stewart look-a-like (but sexier), Teresa Palmer, Cut Bank is a serviceable thriller, but unfortunately its trailer is more impressive.

Liam Hemsworth is a pretty bad actor. Every film he's in he just portrays the same unhappy, mopey moron. He's the William Baldwin, the Chris Penn, the Frank Stallone of his sibling/thespian rivalry. If he can produce the goods, then he's just got the worst agent ever, because he ain't getting the roles to prove it.

C

Another entry in what is almost a genre unto itself: the small-town crime yarn, stories in which avarice and violence erupt through a ma-pa-and-apple-pie veneer. Past highlights include Fargo and A Simple Plan. Here the abrupt, brutal murder of an elderly mailman sets the complicated action in motion, and the web of conspiracy and peril soon ensnares a melancholy local policeman, a reclusive taxidermist, and two youthful lovers who dream of escaping to the big city. The photography is handsome, and the enviable cast is downright crowded with distinctive, valuable players—Bruce Dern, John Malkovich, Teresa Palmer, Oliver Platt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Billy Bob Thornton—but the enterprise is entirely undermined by a precious, pretentious screenplay, as well as a charisma-free lead performance by Liam, the other, blander Hemsworth. The overall air of cynical whimsy is incredibly forced and phony, and the film's desperation to be hip and Coen-brothers-esque becomes wearying. In the second act, the sheer amount of double-crosses and coincidental snafus, however hyper-contrived, generates modest interest, but then the film runs headlong into a cornily sentimental and highly unrealistic ending.

C

WTF is with this movie's ending? Malkovich and Thornton usher Hemsworth into the morgue, and "friendly cop" Malkovich fires two rounds into the dead mailman's chest because, golly, Hemsworth deserves a second chance. After all, he came up with such an "imaginative" scheme!

This not only defies any medical logic (as if the coroner will not realize the bullet wounds transpired postmortem), but seems completely out-of-character for everyone involved. And I could not tell if we were meant to find the gesture heartwarming or perverse. I lean toward the former, which only renders it creepier.

Yeah I didn't care for this one either. I'd probably give it a C-.

Magic Mike dislikes any film that doesn't have pink feather boas and rock-hard, gyrating male models.

You got me.