A hard-line judge is selected as the President’s new general in the war on drugs. Front-line cops in Mexico and the US go after the small-time distributors and try to make cases against the sources of the drugs. A pampered wife, pregnant with her second child, finds out that her husband’s legitimate businesses are just a front for his real import — cocaine. The judge’s teenage daughter becomes a heroin addict.

Director Steven Soderbergh (“Erin Brockovich,” “Sex, Lies, and Videotape”) ably keeps these stories on track, cutting back and forth to let them provide context and contrast for each other, and using different color pallattes to help keep them straight. There are some good lines: a character compares efforts to cut off the drug supply to a game of “Whack-a-Mole” and when a wealthy high school kid overdoses, one of the other teenagers at the party says, “He can’t die on the f**ing floor–his parents are in Barbados!” And a cop notes that “In Mexico, law enforcement is an entrepreneurial activity.”

Despite a first-rate all-star cast, the movie feels flat and a little formulaic, almost like one of those old “Dragnet” episodes about the dangers of drugs. The script moves the characters around like chess pieces. Packing so many stories in so little time requires a lot of narrative short-cuts like coincidences and stereotypes. The Zeta Jones character switches from innocent and doe-eyed to commanding and vicious faster than you can say “Michael Corleone.” Individual scenes have some tension and some fine performances (especially by Benecio del Toro and Don Cheadle as cops), but the overall impact is muted.

Parents should know that the movie has everything that triggers an R rating: violence (including the death of major characters, murder, torture, and a teenage overdose), explicit sex (including the judge’s daughter trading sex for drugs), and strong language. Characters betray each other and there are intense family scenes. However, this is at its heart a morality tale, and all of the R-rated material is in the service of the overall anti-drug message.

Families who see this movie should use it as an opportunity to talk frankly about drugs, both their own views on individual drug use and the impact that the drug business has on the community and the country. As teenagers what they think about the way the judge and his wife responded to his daughter’s drug use, and about his decision at the end of the movie. Was it the right one? Why did the drug dealer’s wife decide to become involved in his business? Did the movie make you feel differently about the role that illegal drugs play in the lives of people around us? When the judge asks the staff for new ideas, the response is silence. What should the next person to hold the anti-drug czar job do?

Families who like this movie should see some of the other performances by its outstanding cast, including Del Toro (who won an Oscar for this role) in “Snatch” and “The Usual Suspects” (both for mature audiences) and Cheadle in “A Lesson Before Dying.” Families who enjoy this movie might like to see the English miniseries that inspired it, “Traffik.”

The Viet Nam battle drama “We Were Soldiers” spends half an hour making us care about each of the characters and the rest of the movie blowing them up.

It is based on the book by Lt. Colonel Harold G. Moore, a devout Catholic who is as devoted a commander as he is a father. Moore was asked to develop the “air cavalry,” a system for using helicopters in combat. He led the Americans into their first major engagement in Viet Nam. They were hopelessly outmanned, with just 400 soldiers to 2000 Vietnamese. They fought bravely and did their best to look out for each other. And most of them were killed or wounded.

There have been thousands of war movies, and dozens of movies about the Viet Nam war, but this is one of the few to truly honor the men who fought and the women they loved. This is not a movie about politicians (though there are some digs at those who sent these men into battle without adequate resources) and it is not a movie about whether the US involvement stemmed from imperialism or a commitment to freedom. This is a movie about those who put their lives on the line not for their country but for each other.

The movie has some weaknesses that, in context, work very well. The battle action is often hard to follow, though perhaps that is a good way to replicate the relentlessness and disorientation of war. The characters and dialogue are clichéd, even corny. But in the context of the movie, they become paradigms. Mel Gibson, as Moore, is the man we would all want to lead us into battle, a true hero who promises his men that he will always be the first on the field and the last to leave, and that men may die, but none will be left behind. He trains his men to learn the tasks of the man above and teach their own tasks to the man below, and directs them, above all, to take care of each other, he gives them a purpose and a dignity that, sadly, the conflict they were sent to fight and the politicians who sent them there never could.

The movie also takes the unusual step of treating the soldiers on the other side with dignity as well, making them human beings with ability, honor – and wives left behind to mourn them.

Parents should know that this is one of the most brutally violent movies ever released, with up-close, graphic, and relentless violence and the deaths of many characters. There is some strong language and a mild sexual situation.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we decide to risk American lives in a war, and how, knowing that lives will be lost, we prepare and motivate our armed forces. They may want to discuss their own views on the war in Viet Nam and the treatment of veterans.

Families who appreciate this movie will also like Saving Private Ryan, Platoon,and The Right Stuff. They should also see the under-appreciated Gardens of Stone.

A man sees what no one else can, and we call him a genius. A man sees what no one else does, and we call him crazy.

This Oscar-winner for Best Picture is a movie about a man who was both, the true story of genius John Forbes Nash, Jr., who revolutionized mathematics and then became mentally ill. More than 40 years later, as he edged back into sanity, his contribution was recognized by some people in Sweden. They awarded him the Nobel Prize.

As the movie opens, it is just after World War II, and a group of bright young mathematicians are arriving at Princeton. They are proud because “mathematicians won the war,” and they are eager to make up for lost time. Nash (Russell Crowe) stands out. He is tactless, he does not go to class, and he does not produce anything publishable. A teacher once told him that he had a double helping of brains but half a helping of heart. It is not that he does not seem to care about norms of social behavior and academic performance – he does not even seem to notice them.

Then Nash has an idea, an anti-Darwinian notion that proves that more success for more people is achieved through cooperation than through competition. The elegance of his proof is a stunning achievement, and he is rewarded with an important position and allowed to select the classmates he wants as his colleagues. He even meets a beautiful student (Jennifer Connelly) who enjoys his directness and appreciates his “beautiful mind.” Nash is successful, saving the day when only he can see the pattern in a string of numbers from an intercepted Soviet message.

But then Nash begins to see patterns where there are none, and he is hospitalized. His powers of logic and focus and the love of his wife help him to reconnect to reality, and after decades of effort, he is able to teach at Princeton.

There is a heartbreaking moment near the end when Nash is leaving a classroom and a man he does not know approaches him to ask him something. Before answering, Nash turns to a student to ask whether she sees the man, too, because he is still not sure which people he sees approaching him actually exist. He has simply adapted to his delusions, by requiring proof, in classic mathematical or at least empirical terms.

This is an extraordinary story, and it has been made into an extraordinary movie. Crowe is, as always, simply magnificent in a role that would provide irresistible temptation for showboating for most actors. There are superb performances by everyone in the cast, including Connelly (an Oscar-winner for Best Supporting Actress), Paul Bettney, Ed Harris, Christopher Plummer, Judd Hirsch, and a dozen others. What is really special here is the way that screenwriter Akiva Goldman and director Ron Howard have found a way to present both Nash’s genius and his mental illness in such compelling, cinematic, and accessible terms. Both in essence become characters in the story as we go inside his head and wonder with Nash what to believe. This is what makes the movie more than a disease-of-the-week special with color-by- numbers “heartwarming” moments of triumph over adversity. This is what makes the movie itself a true work of art.

Parents should know that the material might be very upsetting for kids, or for anyone who has relatives with mental illness or who knows very little about it. There are some strong scenes of family tension and peril, including a child in jeopardy, scuffles, and potential domestic abuse. There are graphic scenes of shock therapy and self-destructive behavior. A character is in peril involving shooting. There is also some crude language with sexual references.

Families who see this movie should talk about mental illness, about how people with mental illness need to be treated, and about what is different now in the way we treat the mentally ill from the days depicted in the movie. Families who want to know more should check the website for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Apollo 13” and “Parenthood,” also directed by Ron Howard. They might also like to read the book, by Sylvia Nasar, or Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, a very engaging book about a brilliant physicist. Families who like board games should try Go, the Chinese board game played by the mathematicians in the movie. The rules are fairly simple, but the strategies are endlessly complex.

NOTE: DVD extras include all kinds of extra goodies, including an entire separate disk featuring footage of the real John Nash and more information about his work.

If not quite as sharp as it could be, “Big Trouble” is still a sharp, funny movie. Based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Berry, it has a terrific cast getting caught up in delicious comic chaos seasoned with a couple of howlingly funny wisecracks.

Tim Allen plays Eliot Arnold, a once-successful columnist reduced to writing ad copy after an altercation wiith his boss. He is held in contempt by his teen-age son Matt (Ben Foster), who is on a quest to “kill” a pretty classmate named Jenny (Zooey Deschanel) by squirting her with a water gun, part of a tag-like contest.

Meanwhile, Arthur (Stanley Tucci), Jenny’s stepfather, is the target of a less benign hitman. It seems that Arthur, a bag man for some bad guys, diverted some of what was in the bag into his own bank account. A couple of cops (Jeaneanne Garofolo and Patrick Warburton), a Frito-loving, tree-sitting, strong but sweet guy with a Jesus hairdo (Jason Lee), some Russians who deal weapons from the back room of a dingy bar, a nuclear device that looks like a garbage disposal, a remarkable number of televisions with their screens shot out, and a flock of goats all manage to play a part before things get resolved.

The translation of book to screen is uneven, primarily because the story is all situation and no character. Even with exceptionally strong personalities in the roles and a director with a refreshing combination of a laid-back tone and a brisk pace, the film still asks too much of the audience by wanting us to care about characters we hardly know.

Parents should know that the movie has comic violence (no one badly hurt), including shooting and scuffles. Characters lie, cheat, steal, smoke, drink, and use bad language. There are comic sexual situations (including a foot fetishist) and brief non-sexual nudity. The scenes involving airport security and a bomb on a plane, the reason the movie’s release was delayed after the terrorist attacks, may cause more twinges than laughter. The movie is at the upper end of the PG-13 rating, closer to an R.

Families who see this movie should talk about the relationship between Matt and Eliot and between Jenny and her mother and step-father. They should also talk about the decision faced by the film-makers following September 11. Should they have changed the story, in addition to delaying the release?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Rat Race.

Renée Zellwegger is irresistible as Bridget Jones, in this delectable romantic comedy with some sly references to that uber-romantic comedy, Pride and Prejudice. From the opening credits, when we see her singing along with the radio to “All By Myself” in her flannel pajamas, we know that she is destined to find someone who loves her as much as we do already, and that we will have a lot of fun on the way there.

Bridget wants to lose weight, stop smoking and drinking, and stop worrying about getting a boyfriend -– so that she can get a boyfriend. But we know that she is just fine the way she is, and suspect that in her heart, she knows that, too. The trick is finding a guy who knows it, and before she can figure that out, she has to get through the gorgeous cad stage. That means an affair with her workaholic, alcoholic, self-centered, needy, but witty and undeniably extremely gorgeous boss, Daniel.

Hugh Grant seems positively relieved not to have to be the stammering, adorable, truehearted “Notting Hill” guy anymore. He plays the part of Daniel, “a disaster with a posh voice and a terrible character,” with such relish that we enjoy seeing Bridget fall for him almost as much as we enjoy seeing her tell him off.

But being taken advantage of by Daniel is not the worst of Bridget’s trials. There is her mother, who leaves her father for an oily home shopping channel pitchman with a fake tan. There is showing up for a “tarts and vicars” party in a Playboy bunny outfit because no one told her that they had decided not to have the guests wear costumes after all. There is the rather stunning shot of Bridget from below as she slides down a fireman’s pole, broadcast throughout the country on television. And there is the stiff and disapproving childhood neighbor, Mark Darcy, now a divorced barrister, who always seems to be there just as Bridget encounters disaster.

Like his namesake in Pride and Prejudice, though, Darcy turns out to have more tenderness and humor than one would think. And so do the filmmakers. Colin Firth, who played Darcy in the television miniseries “Pride and Prejudice,” appears as this Mr. Darcy as well, and his sly and subtle variation on the character is another of the movie’s great pleasures.

Parents should know that this movie is rated R for strong language and for sexual situations and references. There is a very brief shot of a naked couple making love. Characters drink and smoke a lot.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we sort through all of the expectations of our families and our society in deciding who we will be and what chances we will take. What does someone have to know about herself in order to turn down a Daniel? In order to understand what someone like Darcy has to offer?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Four Weddings and a Funeral” (rated R) and everyone should watch Firth and Jennifer Ehle in the miniseries version of “Pride and Prejudice.” The classic MGM version with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson (adapted by Aldous Huxley) is also a treat.