Nollywood, Bollywood and a Little Bit of Hollywood

Johnny Depp and Akshay Kumar get top billing with Agnès Varda in theaters this week.

“Kambakkht Ishq”
Indian helmer Sabir Khan orchestrates a deliberately bombastic coming together of Bollywood and Hollywood for this glossy battle of the sexes. Akshay Kumar stars as Viraj Shergill, a swaggering, sexist stuntman who meets his match in Bollywood’s first lady Kareena Kapoor as Simrita Rai, a caustic model, hardened feminist and aspiring surgeon (yes, really) who doesn’t believe in love. When the pair discovers that her sister and his best friend are to marry, egos clash as they each vow to derail the wedding at all costs. Sylvester Stallone, Denise Richards and Brandon Routh pop up in cameos as themselves. In English and Hindi with subtitles.
Opens in limited release.

“Lion’s Den”
Part social realist study and part class commentary, Argentinean helmer Pablo Trapero’s latest is a morality tale of an expectant mother set against the harsh backdrop of a women’s penitentiary. Casting his real-life partner Martina Gusman, who was herself pregnant at the time, as the lead, Trapero explores the desperate mistakes of bohemian-turned-bourgeois Julia, who finds herself incarcerated for the alleged murder of her lover and must face the brutal reality of raising their newborn son behind bars while her estranged mother (Elli Medeiros) battles for custody from the outside. In Spanish with subtitles.
Opens in New York.

“Local Color”
Before entering into a successful career of writing buddy action comedies such as “Midnight Run” and “Bad Boys,” George Gallo was an aspiring painter, an experience that is the basis for this latest life-affirming, coming-of-age offering. Financed entirely on the goodwill of his friends, Gallo’s autobiographical story stars “Off the Black”‘s Trevor Morgan as John, a headstrong teen with a talent for the brush who tracks down an eccentric artist (Armin Mueller Stahl) at his idyllic Pennsylvania retreat in order to pester him for an apprenticeship and a few life lessons. Samantha Mathis, Ray Liotta, Ron Perlman, Charles Durning and Diana Scarwid co-star; check your cynicism at the (screen) door.
Opens in New York.

“Nollywood Babylon”
On the heels of the similarly themed fest-circuit docs “Peace Mission” and “Welcome to Nollywood” comes this well-reviewed third feature from Canadian filmmakers Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal exploring the creative explosion that is “Nollywood,” Nigeria’s fledgling film industry, now estimated to be the third largest in the world. Centering on the flamboyant and prolific director Lancelot Imasuen, neck deep in his 157th (!) feature “Bent Arrows,” the film chronicles the industry’s dual nature as a means for a population struggling to make a living and as a tool of propaganda for religious and other institutions, all searching for that elusive breakout international hit at a rate of some 20 attempts per week.
Opens in New York.

“Public Enemies”
The last time Michael Mann decided to play cops and robbers with 1995’s underworld epic “Heat,” he succeeded in bringing together two of the finest actors of their generation in Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. Now having put Johnny Depp together with Christian Bale for this bullet-ridden tale of a Depression-era Robin Hood, there is argument to be made that he’s gone and done it again. Depp stars as the charismatic John Dillinger, whose crime spree across the Midwest during the 1930s captured the nation’s imagination and made a mockery of the newly minted FBI task force headed up by Bale’s dogged Agent Melvin Purvis. Marion Cotillard co-stars as Dillinger’s squeeze, Billie Frechette.
Opens wide.

“Tony Manero”
Repression fuels obsession in this bleak and sardonic tale of one Chilean man’s dark flights of fancy during the brutal Pinochet regime in the late ‘70s. This sophomore feature from Pablo Larrain stars Alfredo Castro, who also co-wrote this jet black satire, as an aging hipster obsessed with John Travolta’s “Saturday Night Fever” alter ego. His odd fetish morphs into mania following the announcement of a state sponsored look-a-like contest in which he will go to any lengths to triumph.
Opens in limited release.

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