There are three different stories in this latest effort from writer/director David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, State and Main). Only one of the three is pretty good — a rescue mission to retrieve the kidnapped daughter of the President. The second is a passable, if overly familiar, story of a man developing a broader sense of his own values. And then there is a poorly handled story about government corruption and manipulation of the media. As that thread takes over in the last third, the movie falls apart.

Scott (Val Kilmer) is one of those flinty-eyed “one riot, one Ranger” tough guys who trains future flinty-eyed tough guys when he isn’t being sent on the most crucial and most morally compromising missions.

A college student is missing. Did she run away with the professor with whom she may be having an affair? Did her boyfriend kill her after a fight? Was it a random kidhapping by men who steal blonde girls and sell them into sexual slavery? Or did someone take her because she is the daughter of the President of the United States? Time to call in Scott to find out.

Speed is the top priority. Secrecy comes next. Niceties like Constitutional protections and not killing people who might be innocent are lower down on the list.

Scott and able trainee Curtis (Derek Luke, again showing great warmth, humanity, and charisma) think they are getting close to finding the girl when the word comes down that she and the professor have been found dead following a boating accident. But that is when Scott, always a “how” man, not a “why” man, finds that he cannot travel as light as he thought. It isn’t so much that he wants to understand who the bad guys are. He just wants to get the girl back. Even if she doesn’t want to or deserve to come home.

Mamet is fine when it comes to tension, confrontation, and tough attitude, but as a director his idea of action sequences is to have people unexpectedly get shot. The dialogue is Mamet lite, with none of the brilliant riffs that energize his other scripts. He fumbles the tone of the movie by committing the very last sin his characters would permit — he loses control with preposterous multiply paranoid layers that wear out instead of boring in.

Parents should know that this movie has intense peril and a lot of graphic and explicit violence, including knives and guns, and many characters are killed. Characters smoke and drink and there are drug references. There are sexual references, including references to sexual slavery, and one mild and non-explicit sexual situation. A character commits suicide (though that is later called into question). As in almost all Mamet movies, characters use very strong language.

Families who see this movie should talk about the compromises made by the characters in this movie, including the willingness to violate the rights of suspects in order to get information quickly and the willingness to compromise loyalties and risk lives in order to win an election. How do they decide what their priorities are? What is the difference between the way Scott regards his orders at the beginning of the movie and the way he does at the end? Why? What does it mean to say that “We’re just two men in green?” What does it mean to say, “You’re going to be taking that fight to bed with you for a long time. You don’t gotta do it all now?” Mamet’s films often deal with people who spin stories, from con men (House of Games, Glengarry Glen Ross) to opposing sides who have completely different views of the same incident (Oleanna) to film-makers who will tell any story they need to so that they can, well, tell the story they want to tell (State and Main). How does that theme relate to this film?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy paranoia classics like Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, The Manchurian Candidate, and No Way Out. They might also like the unforgettably creepy original The Vanishing but should avoid the 1993 American remake.

We know what scares Stephen King. That most prolific of writers is still terrified by an empty computer screen, or, even worse, a screen with writing that is unfixably bad. And that author whose imagination has kept millions of happily terrified readers up all night is still scared of losing control of that imagination or having it disappear completely.

And so in this movie, King gives us our hero — Morty (Johnny Depp), like King a write of scary stories. And our villain, a menacing man in a broad preacher’s hat, who says that his name is John Shooter and that Morty has stolen his story.

Living in a remote cabin after splitting with his wife, Morty mostly mopes and sleeps. He loves his adorable dog and he literally won’t hurt a mouse.

But he can’t seem to get back to work. The best he can do is delete what he has already written. And then there is a knock at the door.

Now that we have our sensitive and vulnerable hero, and our eerily knowing menace, all of the traditional thriller elements follow: the red herring, the seemingly ineffectual sheriff and the seemingly powerful ally, the property damage, the shocking deaths, the framing of the hero for the crimes, the creepy music, the tight close-ups that keep us from knowing what’s outside the frame, and of course, the a-ha moment.

It all feels recycled and re-recycled. Depp is always wonderfully watchable and he seems to be enjoying Morty’s long solo scenes as a sort of on-camera acting exercise. There are a couple of tingly reveals and creepy fake-outs, but overall it’s just too familiar, especially for fans of this genre. John Shooter tells Morty that his story needs a better ending. So does this movie.

Parents should know that the movie has a great deal of tension, peril, and brief graphic violence, with grisly dead bodies. Characters are injured and killed. An animal is killed and a house is torched. There are sexual references and situations, including adultery and brief language that is stronger than most PG-13s. Characters smoke and drink and there is a reference to alcohol abuse.

Families who see this movie should talk about the clues that indicate what the final twist will be, including the very first scene and the scene in the bathroom. Why is it important that Morty had a past experience with a charge of plagiarism?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Shining, Swimming Pool (mature material), and Identity.

This fabulously imaginative and deliciously loopy romance is the sweetest movie yet from the magnificently twisty mind behind Adaptation, Human Nature, and Being John Malkovich.

Once again Charlie Kaufman plays with the themes of identity, time, memory, and attraction in a slightly off-kilter world that seems oddly homelike and familiar. The movie is tougher, truer, more heart-breaking and then more heart-healing than a video store shelf of Julias, Megs, Reeses, and Sandras.

Joel (Jim Carrey) is a shy man whose heart is broken when impulsive and free-spirited Clementine (Kate Winslet) leaves him. When he finds out that she has arranged to have all of her memories of him erased, he decides to do the same.

It all seems so simple. Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkenson) of the Lacuna corporation is smoothly assuring. When Joel asks if the procedure could cause brain damage, Dr. Mierzwiak cheerily assures him that “Technically, it is brain damage, about on a par with a night of heavy drinking.” All Joel has to do is bring everything from his apartment that reminds him of Clementine and dictate all of his memories of her into a tape recorder. Then Stan (Mark Ruffalo), the Lacuna technician, maps every part of the brain containing a memory of the formerly loved one. That night, while Joel is asleep, Stan will come in and, using the map, erase every memory of Clementine in Joel’s brain. Then Mary (Kirsten Dunst), Lacuna’s receptionist, mails out postcards to all of Joel’s friends asking them never to mention Clementine again, and it’s as though he never met her.

But erasing someone from the mind the mind is one thing; erasing someone from the heart is another. As Pascal told us, “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.” Stan zaps the memories from Joel’s brain, while Joel, sound asleep under a helmet that looks like a stainless steel colander, realizes that he does not want to let Clementine go after all. There are memories he wants to keep. And then we are inside Joel’s brain (or were we there all along?), as he and Clementine race to find a place to hide, where the memories will be kept safe. Or are those new memories? And is that Clementine who is advising him on how to hold on to her or is it his memory of her?

Shot in a style that is both gritty and dreamy, the movie’s insinuatingly casual tone gently nudges the concepts along so that it almost begins to make more sense than real life. Of course Valentine’s Day would be Lacuna’s busiest time of year. And of course the technicians would be bored by erasing the memories that tear us apart, and so would spend their time getting high and looking through our stuff. And of course the best place to hide a memory you don’t want erased is….no, I’ll have to let you enjoy finding that one out for yourselves.

Carrey and Winslet risk making their characters as maddening to us as they are to each other and are ultimately as irresistable, too. Ruffalo, Wilkenson, and Dunst are impeccable, providing a bittersweet counterpoint of imperfection and longing. Director Michel Gondry matches Kaufman’s script with understated but brilliantly original images of memory and forgetting. As Joel and Clementine speak in front of bookshelves, the books become paler and paler, the titles and authors disappearing. Walls crumble and fall away. In his memory, Joel is first his adult, then his child self, then both. Time and space between locations flicker, overlap, disappear. Clementine’s ever-changing hair color becomes not just a symbol of her impulsivity and inconsistency but just another detail that slips out of reach as we try to remember who it is we care about.

Parents should know that the movie has extremely strong language and very explicit sexual references and situations. Characters drink and smoke cigarettes and marijuana.

Families who see this movie should talk about which memories they might think about erasing and which ones they will always make sure to keep. They might also like to look up the meaning of the word “Lacuna,” talk about some of their favorite quotations and read some of the brilliant poetry of Alexander Pope. The poem that gives this movie its title is about one of the most famous tragic love affairs in literature, Abelard and Eloisa (also called Heloise). Fans of Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich will remember that it features a puppet show based on their story.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Kaufman’s other films and some other stories about repressed men who become involved with free spirits, including Cabaret, Bringing Up Baby, and The Sterile Cuckoo. Another great romance about memory loss is Random Harvest.

Non baby-boomers who don’t recognize the reference to Huckleberry Hound can visit this website to learn something about the cartoon character. A nice counterpoint to the theme of the movie, Huckleberry Hound joined the French foreign legion to forget his girlfriend Clementine, but was reminded of her when he started singing the old folk song, which, by the way, itself ends with the singer forgetting all about his “lost and gone forever” Clementine as soon as he kisses her sister!

This is the latest in the genre I call lunchbox movies. Here is how these movies get made. A 30-something studio executive’s eyes light up when someone suggests a movie based on a cheesy-but-popular 1970’s television show. “I had that lunchbox!” he says. “Do you think we can get the original stars to do a cameo?” All that’s left is to sign up a couple of rising stars and license some oldies for the soundtrack, and we should be good to go.

But it’s trickier than it seems to get the tone right, as the producers of The Avengers and The Mod Squad found out. It has to have both genuine affection for the original and just the right touch of snarky post-modernism. It has to be funny but it also has to keep us engaged enough in the story to keep things moving. This movie gets it right.

Ben Stiller plays Starsky, the play-by-the-rules cop who takes everything very seriously, especially his beloved red Gran Torino with the white vector stripes. He has to try to live up to the standard set by his policewoman mother, but he acts as though he’s following a script. When there’s a shoot-out, Starsky always drops and rolls just a beat before or after it might possibly be necessary and he can’t seem to walk by that cool car without rolling across the hood.

Owen Wilson plays Hutch, the take-it-easy cop whose casual attitude makes him popular with everyone from pretty cheerleaders to cute neighborhood kids to slightly shady informants (including rapper Snoop Dog, the essence of real-life cool as Huggy Bear).

Starsky and Hutch are assigned to work together as punishment by their chief (70’s icon Fred Williamson). And of course at first they do not get along, and of course they then develop grudging respect for each other, and then affection and true partnership.

Cynical observers used to wonder whether the warm friendship between Starsky and Hutch was really deeper than 1970’s television could contemplate. This movie tweaks the idea a little, with the pair stumbling cluelessly through some mildly suggestive situations that feel like a part of its retro vibe.

Vince Vaughn brings his edgy silkiness to the role of the bad guy, a high class drug dealer. Will Ferrell contributes a funny cameo as a prisoner who likes dragons — embroidering them and having men pretend to be them. But the movie is all about the chemistry between Stiller and Wilson, now in their sixth film together, bring out the best in each other. Starsky narrows his eyes intensely as he looks down at a dead body. “You’ve punched your last ticket, amigo.” Hutch peers over at him. “Are you trying to tough talk a dead guy?”

After that, it’s just ringing changes on the most appallingly cheesy aspects of that cheesiest of decades. The soundtrack features “Afternoon Delight,” “I Can’t Smile Without You,” and the hit song by original Hutch David Soul — “Don’t Give Up on Us, Baby.” The clothes are one hilarious “what were we thinking” after another.

S&H go undercover in Easy Rider drag as “Kansas” and “Toto” (you’ll get that if you remember the 1970’s) to question the owner of a biker bar. They interrogate a cheerleader (and are struck speechless when she takes her clothes off). There’s a hilarious disco dance-off. Someone actually says “Sit on it.” And the original Starsky and Hutch show up for a funny cameo.

It’s silly, but it’s a lot of fun. Hmm, speaking of lunchboxes, I wonder if they can get the rights to “Adam 12?”

Parents should know that this movie has very explicit sexual situations and references for a PG-13, including “comic” gay overtones, a threesome (with girls kissing each other), and the swapping of mildly sexual favors for information from an informant. A character accidentally ingests cocaine and his strung-out meltdown is played for humor. Other characters drink and use cocaine (off-camera) and the plot centers on a huge cocaine deal. Characters are in peril. One is killed and a child is injured. There is some strong language, including racist epithets. A strength of the movie is the way that diverse characters work together. Some audience members may be offended by the fact that the villain is Jewish.

Families who see this movie should talk about what made Starsky and Hutch change their minds about each other. Why is it good to have friends who are not just like us? What does it mean to say “To err is human, to forgive divine?” (By the way, contrary to the two mis-attributions in the film, that was said by Alexander Pope.)

Families who enjoy this movie will get a kick out of the fan website for the television series. They might also enjoy other TV-inspired movies like Charlie’s Angels, The Brady Bunch, and SWAT. They should also take a look at the other Stiller/Wilson movies — five so far, including Zoolander, Meet the Parents, and The Royal Tannenbaums (all with some mature material).

This is a romantic fantasy about a straight arrow high school senior who falls for the girl next door, a porn star. That’s not the most offensive part, though. It is a shameless rip-off of the far better Risky Business, even briefly stealing a riff from that movie’s marvelous score by Tangerine Dream. That’s more offensive. But the most offensive aspect of this movie is the stunning stupidity of its script, even by the low standards of teen sex comedies.

Matthew (Emile Hirsch) is just about to get everything he’s been working for. He has successfully raised $25,000 to bring a brilliant Cambodian student to America to study. He’s been accepted to Georgetown and is a finalist for the scholarship that he needs to afford the tuition. Matthew may look longingly at the kids who play hookey and go to the beach, but he can’t even muster a fantasy about going with them; even in his daydreams he gets busted.

Then one night he looks out of his bedroom window and sees a gorgeous girl (Elisha Cuthbert) in the house next door, getting undressed. She sees him peeping and comes over to his house. It turns out she is house-sitting for her aunt. She takes him for a ride and asks him when the last time was that he did something crazy. The next thing he knows, he’s standing naked in the street as she drives away. And soon after that, he and Danielle are playing hookey and crashing a party. All is dewy young love in soft focus until he finds out that she is a porn star. He is disappointed in her. She is disappointed in him because he is disappointed in her. Danielle goes back to Kelly (Timothy Olyphant), the porn producer. Matthew goes after her. Kelly goes after him. The $25,000 disappears. Snobbish bullies must be shown up. And there is still that speech he has to give to win that scholarship.

The porn star as romantic ideal raises the same issues as the many films presenting prostitutes as the leading lady (and as Oscar bait — playing a prostitute is a reliable way to attract the attention of the Motion Picture Academy). But whether the movie is a silly comedy (Trading Places), a romantic comedy (Pretty Woman), a comedy with literary allusions (Mighty Aphrodite), or even a drama (Leaving Las Vegas and Klute), there is something uncomfortably misogynistic about these heroines. They always seem to be impossible fantasy figures, eternally available and unshockable yet somehow ineradicably pure, and, perhaps the ultimate fantasy, having experienced many men but preferring our leading man. In the most cynical manner, this movie smugly attempts to have it both ways. It wants us to be titillated by Danielle’s past and yet root for her innocent romance. It wants us to assume that she is both a woman who is paid to have sex on screen and an angel. The ultimate conclusion is all the more smarmy for trying not to be.

Cuthbert has a warm laugh and a beautiful smile. Olyphant and Hirsch (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and The Emperor’s Club) show signs of true screen presence, giving their characters shading and magnetism far beyond the script (and even farther beyond the other performers). It does have a few moments of comedy, a terrific soundtrack of surprisingly well-chosen pop and rock, and even a little charm. But the overall themes are truly vile and the last third of the plot is both vile and stupid.

Parents should know that this movie has explicit sexual references and situations. Many of the main characters work in the pornography industry. While the glimpses of porn video footage are brief and more suggestive than explicit, there are some graphic images and there is a lot of vulgar humor. Characters go to a strip club and get lap dances. Characters also drink and smoke and a character’s inadvertant use of the drug ecstacy is portrayed as humorous. There is some violence, including fights, and characters use very strong language. Parents should also be aware that they may find the overall themes of the movie inappropriate even for older teens, including the idea of the porn star as a fantasy romantic figure.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Matthew and Danielle see in each other and what the prospects for their future relationship are likely to be. What do you think about Matthew’s idea about how to solve his problem?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the vastly better (and more authentically ambivalent) Risky Business.