END OF THE SPEAR
For a movie about Christian missionaries, Jim Hanon's syrupy docudrama sure hides its light under a bushel. Unless you've seen Hanon's documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor, you might have a hard time figuring out exactly what the tendentiously named Nate Saint is doing in the Ecuadorian jungle, or exactly why he's so keen on making contact with the Waodani tribe—especially since they're presented as unremittingly violent savages. Christian audiences, of course, will have no trouble reading between the lines, especially when Nate tells his young son (Chase Ellison) that he won't shoot at the Waodani even if they attack, since "they're not ready to go to heaven, but we are." Even after they've killed Nate and his four fellow missionaries, Hanon doesn't demonize the Waodani—they do, after all, need to be saved in the end—but he doesn't humanize them either; they're just vessels waiting to be filled. (A patronizing excerpt from Hanon's documentary that runs over the closing credits shows the Waodani leader portrayed in the film marveling over an American supermarket and approvingly notes that when he returned home, he was too fat to hunt for food.) Worse than the movie's racist premises is its hypocrisy, proclaiming the need to "teach the gospel" (a phrase seen only in a Life headline) while referring to Jesus only as a man "who was speared but didn't spear back." So much for spreading the good word. --Sam Adams (UA Riverview)

LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
See Cindy Fuchs' review. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

THE NEW WORLD
See Sam Adams' review. (Bala; Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

ON THE OUTS
This film creeps up on you. At first, Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik's use of hand-held camerawork and cuts among three Jersey City girls in various degrees of trouble indicate it's another look at urban kids going wrong. Based on juvenile detention center case studies, and well acted, especially by the ensemble's three principals—Raising Victor Vargas' Judy Marte as a tomboy dealer, Anny Mariano as a 15-year-old impregnated by her older boyfriend, and Paola Mendoza as a crack-addicted single mother—On the Outs soon develops into deft character studies. Each moment, choices and glances suggest layers of complexities, the circumstances that shape the girls' unformed ambitions and limited horizons (this even as the Statue of Liberty appears in the distant background in a couple of resonant images). Facing severe family situations (addicted, dead or overworked mothers; no fathers in sight), the girls cross paths in juvey, briefly, but for the most part go off on their own difficult journeys. As these are represented in crisp high-definition video and smart editing, the movie doesn't sentimentalize or sensationalize. Instead, it lets the girls speak. --Cindy Fuchs (UA Riverview)

TRANSAMERICA
"This is the voice," says pre-op transsexual Bree (Felicity Huffman), practicing her woman's pitch. As if to do battle with the world, she prepares carefully before heading out the door, ensuring that her body is properly contained, her nails pink, her lipstick blushy. Not so fast: Learning that she has a 17-year-old Calvin-Klein-modelish son named Toby (Kevin Zegers) from her days as Stanley, Bree must come to terms with her past before stepping into her future. This takes the form of a cross-country road trip, during which she pretends to be a Christian missionary and learns of his abusive stepfather, prostitution and tendency to lie and cheat. Truths will emerge, of course, as will Bree's penis and serial recriminations (including a painful stopover at her parents' home in Phoenix). The episodic structure is less tedious than its conventional efforts to make Bree's situation affecting for an imagined mainstream audience. This means the conflict between parent and child must accommodate or reflect the sorts of anxieties that such viewers recognize and smile at, tiffs that don't quite reach crisis points but instead allow the free-to-be-you-and-me vibe to permeate the film. Most swiftly abandoned is the moment when Toby tries seducing Bree, his version of thanks for her generosity. This particular transgression—incestuous desire, ambiguously gendered to boot—leads an unresolved tension between titillation and forgiveness, Lifetime-style. --C.F. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION
A haiku:
Nerds get déjá vu
Sexy vampires fight wolves.
Keep it in your pants.

(Not reviewed.) (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview; UA 69th St.)

THE WHITE COUNTESS
The last collaboration between James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant ends the partnership with a damp fizz. Set in 1930s Shanghai just before the Japanese invasion, Countess stars Ralph Fiennes as a blind American ex-diplomat obsessed with opening "the bar of my dreams," a sticky trinket that ought to embarrass anybody, let alone screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro. The countess in question is both Fiennes' bar and Natasha Richardson's displaced Russian aristocrat, reduced to whoring herself to support her daughter and ungrateful family (Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave, underused and barely present). In case Fiennes' metaphorical blindness isn't strong enough, Ishiguro gives him a thousand variations on the verb "to see," and having a spike pounded into your head is no more pleasant if it's decked with jewels. Christopher Doyle's photography will draw a few fans, but even he's phoning it in at his usual exalted level. Like any Merchant-Ivory film, Countess has production values out the wazoo, but it lacks even the faintest spark of life. --S.A. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)