BONJOUR MONSIEUR SHLOMI
Shot on video so overlit it looks like a home movie, Shemi Zarhin's milky comedy balances small moments of domestic observation with a clunky, clumsy coming-of-age story. It's not the roughness that gets you so much as the insincerity; unschooled is one thing, contrived is another. --Sam Adams (Ritz Five)

GOING UPRIVER: THE LONG WAR OF JOHN KERRY
News that director George Butler (Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure) re-edited Upriver in response to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television ads pretty much sinks any semblance of impartiality, but Butler's restrained tribute still has it all over the Swift Boat Vets scurrilous slime. On the one hand, Butler's portrait is the best possible advertisement for a Kerry presidency, showing the courage of Kerry's service in Vietnam and his dedicated and principled opposition to the war when he returned. (The idea that Kerry's anti-war stance was opportunistic, floated by a few Foxy commentators, is laughably ahistorical.) Of course, seeing Kerry speak decisively and eloquently against the war in the Winter Soldier hearings only makes you wonder where that passionate, unflinching man has gone or at least why he hasn't shown himself of late. Going Upriver can't touch the documentaries Winter Soldier and Interviews with My Lai Veterans as a record of soldiers' opposition to the war, but its presence in theaters is a critical reminder that opposing a war takes as much courage as fighting one. --S.A.(Ritz Five)

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
Charlize Theron vamps as bisexual photographer-actress-heiress Gilda Bessé, who stumbles into the Cambridge dorm room of the aptly named Guy (Stuart Townsend). As it's 1933, her much-discussed wildness takes shape as smoking, drinking and casual sexing, and he is so vapidly noble that, once seduced, he loves her truly and only. Soon reunited in Paris, they come to share a flat with Gilda's occasional squeeze Mia (Penélope Cruz), a stripper with a limp who studies to become a nurse. Lest you think Mia's career aspirations frivolous, she and Guy head off to the Spanish Civil War, imagining they will demonstrate their devotion to the cause, which might be fighting fascism but might also be showing Gilda the error of her tawdry, self-centered ways. This despite that, or maybe because, gorgeous Gilda has proved her own devotions — to Mia by beating up the sexual sadist who abuses her and to Guy by putting up with his sulky possessiveness for what seems like years. Whether Gilda appears to be alternately vacuous and misunderstood, she's stunningly one-dimensional. — Cindy Fuchs (Bala; Ritz East; Ritz 16)

LADDER 49
Since 9/11, firefighters are rediscovered pop-cult heroes, loved on Third Watch, paraded by President Bush, turned into action figures, even complicated on Rescue Me and in The Guys. Now comes Jay Russell's paean to the noble camaraderie of this remarkable breed of men (and they are all men here). It's a well-intentioned effort undermined by a pile of cliches (from soundtrack to predictable plot events to sentimental characterizations) and John Travolta, lumbering through another role without visible commitment. Joaquin Phoenix plays the earnest rookie, razzed and respected by his seniors (Robert Patrick and Morris Chestnut) until he's been around long enough to bestow the same treatment on the next newbie (Jay Hernandez). Composed of flashbacks as Phoenix lies damaged and endangered in a burning building, the film traces lots of personal and communal history, including his evolving relationships with his fellows, marriage (to Jacinda Barrett) and eventual doubts and reconfirmation of his calling to fight fires. Sentimental and surprisingly uncomplicated, given the difficulties of the job, the film seems a disservice to the very folks it wants to extol. --C.F. (AMC Orleans; Ritz 16; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

SHARK TALE
Oscar (a colorful, cocky fish voiced by Will Smith) aspires to fame, wealth and beautiful women-fish. He also wants a penthouse apartment far from the Reef, the underclass neighborhood where, like his father before him, he scrubs tongues down at the Whale Wash (a plot point that means the soundtrack CD includes Missy Elliott and Christina Aguilera's cover of "Carwash"). He doesn't appreciate his loyal supporter Angie (Renée Zellweger), owes money to his puffer fish boss (Martin Scorsese) and catches heck from the boss's henchmen, a couple of Rasta jellyfish (Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug), so he's ready when the opportunity to lie his way to stardom presents itself in the form of vegetarian shark Lenny (Jack Black). Afraid of his godfather dad Don Lino (Robert De Niro), Lenny pretends to be killed by the great "shark killer" Oscar, then hides out in dolphin drag as Oscar is gushed over by reporter Katie Current (Katie Couric). The father-son business is tired, as is the choice of Oscar faces, between perky Angie and luscious dragonfish Lola (Angelina Jolie), and the industry jokes (say, between De Niro and Scorsese) are considerably less fresh than they were in the Shreks. --C.F. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Bryn Mawr; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

TAE GUK GI
Kang Je-gyu's relentless war epic is a Korean Saving Private Ryan, down to the weepy, modern-day framing story and the very Western, John Williams-esque score. The title refers to the South Korean flag, but nationalistic concerns are supplanted by personal ones more befitting its subtitle, "The Brotherhood of War." Chow Yun-fat look-alike Jang Dong-Kun stars as the elder of two brothers forced to join the army when war breaks out with the North, who continually risks his own life in hopes of earning his younger brother (Won Bin) a ticket home. In the process, he is transformed into a killing machine, and even the brief respites between battles turn as violent as the war itself. Never less than impressive, the battle scenes come with such frequency that their effect is blunted from numbing repetition. The whole thing finally goes straight over the top when one brother is brainwashed by the Communists and the other must single-handedly fight his way through the North Korean army, who suddenly begin to attack single-file like movie ninjas. Kang may be attempting to one-up Spielberg, and both sentiment and spectacle are suitably super-sized, but he falls short when it comes to basic storytelling. --Shaun Brady (Loews Cherry Hill)

THERESE
(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Hey pope, quick question:
OK if I be a nun?
Cheers — little French girl.

(UA Riverview)

WOMAN THOU ART LOOSED
Live from death row, Michelle (excellent Kimberly Elise) tells her sad and violent story to the somber Bishop Jakes. That he's played by evangelist Bishop T.D. Jakes, whose novel and stage play inspired Michael (Car Wash) Schultz's new movie, only further complicates its earnest, heavy-handed, unsurprising Message. She's just about forgiven her church-going mother (Loretta Devine), whose no-count boyfriend (Clifton Powell) raped Michelle as a girl, but she's also come to see her own bad choices, as outlined in this flashback-on-flashback structure. She now sees she had chances to go straight, had she only accepted the spiritual and emotional/romantic help offered by longtime friends (Debbi Morgan and Michael Boatman, respectively). Instead, she's caught in a dire spiral the film suggests is inevitable for too many women: men are either pimps/bullies/dealers or ineffectual when it matters most. After spending most of her short life in self-abuse and denial — represented by her gaudy pimp (Sean Blakemore) as much as her own gaunt-junkie look — Michelle does eventually turn her violence outward. This much is revealed in the first scenes, as she shoots up Jakes' mega-church while ladies in pink hats scream and faint. — C.F. (UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Riverview)

THE YES MEN
Call it impersonation or "identity correction," but there's genius in the activist pranks of The Yes Men, the subject of this documentary by Chris Smith (American Movie), Dan Ollman and Sarah Price. When a fake Web site they'd created for the World Trade Organization led to a bona fide invitation, Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum became The Yes Men, posing as WTO members at conferences and on CNBC, taking the free-trade gospel to absurd, but logically consistent, lengths. In Finland, they argue that slavery was not immoral so much as inefficient, which seems to go down all right with the textile conference they're addressing until Bichlbaum rips off his business attire to reveal a gold lamé "Management Leisure Suit," complete with a phallic projection for keeping track of workers. Even then, the Finns seem more beguiled than upset, as if the reflex to treat well-dressed people with respect no matter what they say is too inbred to overcome. (Or maybe they're just bored.) The David-and-Goliath thrill of watching Bonanno and Bichlbaum's shoestring cleverness subvert one of the most powerful organizations in the world is hard to overstate, surpassed only by the heady speculation of the stunts the movie's viewers might be inspired to pull. — S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse)