Lone Rangers

Reviews of "The Limits of Control" and "The Merry Gentleman."

There’s no mystery at all in what Frank Logan (Michael Keaton) does for a living in “The Merry Gentleman.” As laconic as Lone Man, if more tightly wound, Logan is a hired gunman who’s getting so burned out by his routine that he’s flirting with suicide. Just as he’s about to leap off the roof from which he’s made his latest kill, Logan’s started away from the brink by the cry of a young office worker named Kate (Kelly Macdonald), who’s living her own life of quiet desperation.

Kate, hiding out in Chicago from a violently abusive husband (Bobby Cannavale), later has a chance encounter with Frank at the door of her apartment building, where she’s buried under a Christmas tree. They seem able to ease each other’s anxieties without being anxious, and develop a warm bond without romantic hang-ups. She has no idea who Frank is and what he does, but there’s a police detective (Tom Bastounes), who has more than an idea.

Ron Lazzeretti’s script may seem somewhat mechanistic in its plot points. But there’s a muted, engagingly squishy charm to “The Merry Gentleman” that overcomes even its weaker contrivances. Macdonald, quietly radiant even at her most reserved, is the emotional center, and Keaton, making his directorial debut, wisely gives her plenty of room to glow. As for Keaton the actor, the grizzle and sadness pervading his shadowy character looks good on him. Some have made a big to-do about this role somehow going against Keaton’s “type.” But whatever the “type” they’re talking about belongs to those noisy Hollywood contraptions that made him a leading man in the ’80s. He was always a fine, versatile actor, and if you need any proof beyond “Beetlejuice” or “Batman,” ask around for Glenn Gordon Caron’s underrated 1988 autopsy of go-go addiction, “Clean and Sober.”

Gene Seymour is our guest critic for the month of May.

“The Limits of Control” and “The Merry Gentleman” open in limited release on May 1st.

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