“Hart’s War” is a big movie that takes on big themes with the courage to give them time and allow for some ambiguity.

Although it is set in WWII and has some battle violence, it is primarily a human drama about honor, sacrifice, courage, and dignity, themes that are explored from the farthest reaches as ideals and from the most personal choices made by individuals.

Lt. Hart (Colin Farrell) is a soldier who works at a desk, far from enemy lines. His father is a Senator, and he was in his second year at Yale Law School when he joined the Army. He tells us that troops were just pins on a map to him. He is glad for the chance to get out into the countryside when he gets an opportunity act as driver for a commanding officer. But the officer is killed and Hart is captured by the Germans. They torture him to try to get him to provide information, and then they ship him off to a prisoner of war camp.

The ranking American officer at the camp is Colonel McNamara (Bruce Willis). The German commandant is Colonel Visser (Romanian actor Marcel Iures). The commanding officers have more in common, and perhaps more respect for one another, than they would like to admit.

When two black officers arrive at the camp, the fragile balance of power is disrupted. Because the officer’s quarters are full, they, like Hart, are put in with the enlisted men, who object. During WWII, the armed services were still segregated, so none of the American soldiers had ever had to live with black men before, much less salute them. When the most outspokenly racist soldier is murdered, a black officer is accused, Hart is assigned as his defense counsel, and a court-martial is set up.

About 45 minutes into the story, it begins to become clear that it is not intended to reflect or illuminate the history of about WWII or indeed any war or any history. It is only set in a POW camp as a way to provide a sharper focus for the issues it addresses. McNamara tells Wasser that Americans don’t make distinctions. Wasser, serving more in the role of Socratic interrogator than enemy, points out that America makes a lot of distinctions, especially when it comes to black people. Will the officer get a fairer trial in a German POW camp than he would in the Georgia of the 1940’s? In the POW camp, the black officers face far more mortal danger from their fellow Americans than they do from the Nazis.

The story has some surprising twists and turns, and an ending that will spark some discussion as audiences leave the theater. The performances are excellent, with Terrence Howard a standout as the accused man, telling the court that in his home town, white German POWs can eat at the diner and go to the movie theater, while he, an officer risking his life for his country, cannot.

Parents should know that the movie has some graphic battle violence. Characters are killed. There is some strong language, and some references to drinking. Issues of honor, integrity, equality, justice, and balancing individual rights with the good of the group are all explored.

Families who see this movie should talk about the segregation that existed in the United States before the 1960’s, and the consequences that are still felt today. They should also talk about the choices made by Hart, McNamara, Wasser, and Scott. Which ones surprised you? Which did you agree with?

Families who appreciate this movie will also like the two great WWII POW dramas Stalag 17 and The Great Escape, both based on true stories. They will also like Breaker Morant, another story of a military legal proceeding with an inexperienced defense attorney and the brilliant anti-war drama Gallipoli, starring Mel Gibson.

As I watched this movie, I thought about how important the hair is in Meg Ryan movies. Those adorable tousled curls in “City of Angels.” The feisty but vulnerable and equally adorable hairdo in “You’ve Got Mail.” The very serious and hardly adorable at all hairdo in “Courage Under Fire.” And now, in a movie where we need some seriously cute hair, I am sorry to say that it is an unfortunate jaggedy sort of thing that doesn’t work at all.

This is a movie about a modern-day New York woman with no illusions (just a few years ago, she would have been called a “career girl”) who meets up with a 19th century Duke, a guy who has never seen modern technology but who stands up when she leaves the dinner table. It is a perfectly pleasant date movie with a cute premise and attractive stars, but it never quite works because (1) it is very predictable and (2) it is not very believable. Oh, I believe that a 19th century duke could travel through time. I just don’t know how he would fall in love with Meg Ryan in that hairdo.

The hair would not matter quite so much if the movie gave us anything else to work with. Ryan’s character, Kate, is just so brittle and charmless that it takes every smidgen of Ryan’s considerable adorableness quotient and every smidgen of Hugh Jackman’s considerable acting ability to help us believe that Leopold (Jackman’s character) is swept away by her. They make it work, but just barely.

The movie has some nice moments by a first-rate group of sidekicks and supporting actors, including Breckin Meyer as Kate’s actor brother (the lessons he gets from Leopold on how to approach the woman he has a crush on are delightful), Natasha Lyonne as Kate’s assistant, “West Wing’s” Bradley Whitford as Kate’s boss, and Liev Schrieber as Kate’s neighbor.

Parents should know that the movie has brief strong language and a joke about modern-day pooper-scooper laws. Characters drink and smoke. A supervisor’s behavior could be considered predatory, even sexual harassment.

Families who see this movie should talk about how bad experiences can make some people cynical. Why is Kate’s job important in telling us something about her and about the themes of the movie? If you could go back in time, where would you go and who would you like to meet? Which customs of olden days would you like to bring back?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (which Kate describes to Leopold) and, of course, a carriage ride through the park!

Plot: Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara), an executive at Macy’s, is responsible for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. When the Santa Claus she has hired for the parade shows up drunk, she quickly subsitutes Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn), who is an enormous success. She hires him to serve as the store’s in-house Santa. There he is an even bigger success. He tells customers to shop elsewhere when Macy’s doesn’t have what they want. The employees are aghast, but it turns out to be a public relations triumph, and Macy’s is known as “the store with a heart.”

Doris has a little girl named Susan (Natalie Wood). She has decided to raise Susan without any fantasies or illusions, to help her handle “reality.” Susan does not believe in Santa Claus. But Kris tells her that he really is Santa Claus, and when she sees him singing a song in Dutch to comfort a little girl who doesn’t speak English, she begins to believe him. He teaches her how to use her imagination, so that the other children will enjoy playing with her. He has the enthusiastic support of lawyer Fred Gailey (John Payne), who cares deeply for Doris and Susan.

But Kris’ insistence that he really is Santa Claus leads to a hearing on his mental competency. Kris is so unhappy that he does not even want to assist in his defense. Doris and Susan write to let them know they believe in him, and a postal clerk decides to send along with it all of the letters addressed to Santa Claus as well. Fred persuades the court that this is conclusive proof that the U.S. Government believes that Kris is Santa, and the judge rules in his favor. The next day is Christmas, and when Doris, Fred, and Susan all get what they asked for, it is clear that Kris made it possible.

Discussion: In a way, this is the opposite of “Inherit the Wind.” Both are courtroom dramas about how we decide what is true, based on faith or based on provable fact. They have opposite conclusions, however, and the great gift of the movies is that both seem right to us. (One similarity is that in both, the judges are warned that they must make a decision that will have favorable political consequences.)

Doris has been hurt, and thinks she can protect herself and Susan from further hurt by not letting herself believe in anything outside themselves any more. She finds out that both she and Susan have missed a lot, not just in imagination but in the ability to trust, and to allow themselves to get close to other people.

Questions for Kids:

· Why doesn’t Doris want Susan to use her imagination? Why do Kris and Fred think it is important?

· Why is it important that Kris told people to go to other stores to buy things they didn’t have at Macy’s?

· Why doesn’t Mr. Sawyer like Kris?

· Why did Fred have Mr. Mara’s son testify in the trial?

· Why doesn’t Kris try harder to win the case at first? What makes him change his mind?

Connections: Ignore the pallid 1973 (television) and 1994 (theatrical) remakes. The original is much, much better, and the 1994 version completely ruins the courtroom denouement. Gwenn won a well-deserved Oscar, as did the screenplay.

Almost everyone knows the original “Oceans 11,” but almost no one remembers much about it except that Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, and Joey had some plan to knock over casinos in Las Vegas and that they had more fun making it than anyone had watching it.

This loose remake kicks it up several notches with enough genuine Hollywood star power to light all the neon signs in Nevada. George Clooney plays Sinatra’s part, Danny Ocean, this time just out of prison (in the tux he was wearing when he went in) with an idea about robbing three casinos of $150 million. The only problem is that the vault that holds all of their cash is “a security system that rivals that of most nuclear silos.” But Danny figures if he can get a good team together and a bankroll for some equipment, he can make it work.

So this is one of those movies in which we spend 40 minutes meeting the cast, 20 minutes setting up the robbery, and 40 minutes breaking into the vault, “Mission Impossible”-style. It’s done with a lot of panache and is good old-fashioned, Hollywood heist film fun.

Part of the pleasure of the film is its low-key style. The echo of the Rat Pack version is the way that everyone on screen has enough confidence to pull back a little and underplay the scenes to create a kind of intimacy. We feel that we’re listening in on real conversations, and find ourselves leaning forward as though each of us is in on the deal with them.

One problem, though, is that there are just too many goodies on screen. It’s hard for us to adjust our expectations for star turns by the high-wattage cast. There are so many stars that we don’t get to spend enough time with any of them. Matt Damon’s role is criminally under-written (just think of him as “the kid”) and we want to know more about Cheadle’s cockney demolition expert, the bickering brothers played by Scott Caan and Casey Affleck, Garcia’s casino owner, and especially about Tess (Julia Roberts), formerly married to Ocean, and now involved with Garcia’s character. Old-timers Elliott Gould and Carl Reiner are magnificent in small roles, and a couple of young TV stars drop by for a slyly hilarious cameo.

It is fitting that in a heist movie someone could steal the show, and in this movie it is Brad Pitt in a walk. I give Pitt a lot of credit for wanting to show off his considerable acting chops by staying away from glamour roles and often working against his natural appeal. His performance in “12 Monkeys” was as good as any Oscar-winner on his best night. But here he just relaxes and shows us that he can turn in a performance of effortless charm, subtle and witty, completely in service to the character and the movie and yet completely movie star mesmerizing, the most appealing he has been since his breakthrough performance in “Thelma and Louise.”

Parents should know that the movie has some strong language and some violence (no one hurt). The main characters are thieves, con men, and just plain crooks, and we are expected to be on their side.

Families who see this movie should talk about why heist films are perennially popular. How do the writer and director make us root for the crooks? What is it that we enjoy so much about seeing a robbery? Is it the fantasy of instant millions? The fun of seeing how they solve the unsolvable logistical problems? Watching them respond on the spot to the unexpected? Which character did you like the most? Why?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy other heist films like “Topkapi” and “The Lavender Hill Mob.”

This movie about the real-life integration of a Virginia high school football teem teeters on the brink of cliche and stereotype but manages to come down on the side of archetype, thanks to a sure script, solid direction, and another sensational performance by Denzel Washington.

It was not until 1971, seventeen years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, that black students came to T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria Virginia. Every other team in that football-loving district was still segregated. But the white T.C. Williams players were confronted with not only a whole new set of black players, but a black coach, Herman Boone (Washington). In a matter of a few weeks, Boone has to make them into a team — and it has to be a winning team, because the school board is looking for any reason to fire him so they can reinstate Coach Yoast (Will Patton), now demoted to assistant.

This is the kind of movie that begins with all the characters attending a funeral under a bright autumn sun and then takes us back to where it all began. This is the kind of movie in which people say things like, “Is this even about football anymore or is it just about you?” and where the supreme bonding moment is when everyone sings Motown songs together. In other words, no surprises here. If everyone hadn’t achieved a sense of brotherhood that transcended race and it hadn’t all turned out pretty well, Disney would not have made a movie about it. But that just leaves us free to enjoy the movie’s appealing characters and special moments. And that’s all right. There is a reason for the classic structure of the sports movie — we like to watch raw recruits learn honor and loyalty out there on the field when it’s done right, and here it is done very nicely.

Washington is, as ever, that rarest of pleasures, equally an actor and a movie star. His power to mesmerize and inspire as a performer works perfectly with his role as a coach who can capture the attention and loyalty of these teen-age boys. Boone is so secure in himself that he can devote all of his energy to the team, so he inspires them by example.

Boone loves football because the football field is the one place where only what is inside the players matters — talent, loyalty, hard work, integrity. He is a man who has faced racism with dignity and self-confidence, not bitterness. He also loves football because it provides a constructive outlet for his emotions. He tells the team that football is “about controlling that anger, harnessing that aggression to achieve perfection.”

Boone takes the boys to a college near Gettysburg for training. It is impossible to say which is the tougher workout for the team — the physical challenges of drills and practices or the emotional challenge of overcoming a lifetime of anger and prejudice. He takes them to the Gettysburg battlefield and tells them that “Fifty thousand men died on this same field fighting the same battle we are still fighting today…If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed.”

But there is another battlefield waiting for them when they get back to school. The team has a number of tough moments on and off the field. So do the coaches. As Boone reminds them, in mythology the titans were even greater than the gods. Like all great coaches, Boone and Yoast teach the team that they have it within themselves to be great as well. And they realize that they get as much from the boys as the boys get from them.

Parents should know that the movie includes racist comments and situations and some locker room insults. A major character is critically injured in a car accident. When the boys refer to a long-haired teammate as a “fruitcake,” he responds by kissing one of them on the mouth. There are some scuffles and threats of more serious violence.

Families who see this movie should talk about the arguments Boone and Yoast have about how to motivate the team. Yoast thinks that Boone is too tough. Boone thinks that Yoast is more protective of the black players than the white players. Ask family members who inspired them to do their best, and how they did it. Notice that Boone may criticize a player’s performance on the field in front of the others, but that he never lets the team know that he is helping one member with his schoolwork. Talk about the way that the boys show respect and affection by insulting each other.

Families might also want to talk about Yoast’s willingness to stay on as assistant coach, despite the blow to his pride, and about why he relinquishes his chance to be in the Hall of Fame.

Parents may want to share their recollections of the civil rights era in light of the players’ experience in not being allowed to eat at a restaurant. The movie focuses on racism, but it also deals with other kinds of prejudice. See if the kids in the family notice the prejudice against the boy with long hair or Boone’s patronizing attitude toward Yoast’s football-loving daughter.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy “Brian’s Song,” the true (and very sad) story of the first racially mixed roommates in the NFL, Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo.