BY GENE TRIPLETT

HONOLULU — Glancing out the hotel window at the lush green sprawl of golf course lined with palm and banyan trees and all manner of exotic flowering plant life ending at the white

Josh Hutcherson, Luis Guzman, Vanessa Hudgens, Dwayne Johnson.

 sands of Waikiki Beach and the sparkling blue Pacific beyond, it’s hard to imagine anyone finding hardship and trouble in this paradise.

But that’s what Dwayne Johnson managed when he was a student a Honolulu’s William McKinley High School.

“I wanted to go back to my roots,” the former WWE champion-turned-film-actor told a room full of reporters during a recent press day at the Kahala Hotel to promote the release of “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.”

“It was important to me,” said Johnson, a bit of his elaborate Polynesian tattoo showing beneath the short sleeve of the form-fitting black T-shirt that covered his heroic muscles like a second skin.

“I did a lot of my growing up here in Hawaii,” he said. “It always represented struggle. It was here in Hawaii I had the notion in my head, ‘Well, I can change my life with my hands.’ Meaning maybe I could build my body and I could become someone and change my family’s situation. So it was all driven based off that.

“And it all started in the McKinley weight room. It all started when I was 14 years old as a freshman. I started playing football. I was getting in trouble all the time. I was doing a lot of things that I shouldn’t have been doing. I still had coaches who believed in my potential, but it all started in that weight room.”

Facing the past

So, one of the first things Johnson did when he returned to Hawaii to promote “Journey 2” — much of which was filmed on location here — was revisit his old school.

“And I went back unannounced,” he said. “The principal knew. We went in, and the beauty of that weight room is, it’s still a mess, it’s still dirty, it’s still rusted out. There’s still electrical tape holding together a lot of the equipment. Nothing has changed in years. And that’s the beauty of it, because it’s never been about boosters and donating a lot of money, donating this beautiful space. It’s about kids getting after it, getting better in that dirty place. Big chicken skin moment.”

The surprised students he spoke to were no doubt impressed with this hometown-boy-made-good, as he’s now one of the biggest box office draws in the world with gross film revenues in excess of $2.1 million, and yet another potential blockbuster opening in theaters Friday.

“I enjoy making a movie that the entire family can go see,” Johnson said of “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.”

“In this case it’s a big adventure, an epic adventure. My first 3-D movie. Written and directed for 3-D, written and made for 3-D, not converted. There’s a lot of reasons to go back into this space. When you do a family movie right, there’s a character on the screen that every member of the family can relate to. That’s a cool and special thing. I like that.”

‘Journey’ continues

“Journey 2” is the second installment in a Jules Verne-inspired franchise that began with 2008′s “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” Josh Hutcherson returns as intrepid teenage explorer Sean Anderson, and Johnson makes his first appearance in the series as Sean’s new stepfather, Hank.

The running plot of the series thus far has had Sean setting out on dangerous quests to prove Verne’s 19th-century novels were more fact than fiction. This time the story begins when Sean receives a coded distress signal from a mysterious island where no island should exist.

Unable to stop Sean from tracking the signal to its source, stepfather Hank joins the quest that takes them to the South Pacific, where they hire a helicopter pilot (Luis Guzman) and his daughter (Vanessa Hudgens) as guides in their search for the lost island and its lone human inhabitant, Sean’s explorer grandfather, Alexander (Michael Caine).

What they encounter is a place of stunning beauty, volcanoes, mountains of gold, giant carnivorous lizards and miniature elephants, to name just a few of the mind-boggling sights.

And along the way, each of the characters learns in his or her own way to accept and appreciate others for who they are, and let go of negative first impressions.

Measure of success

“They don’t all have to make hundreds of millions of dollars as long as they’re good,” Johnson said of the films he’s made, which include “The Scorpion King,” “Walking Tall,” “Race to Witch Mountain,” “Fast Five” and the upcoming “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.”

“And in this case, we’ve got a shot at making hundreds of millions of dollars and also just making a good movie that has some value in it,” Johnson said.

Of course, the actor also known as “The Rock” made his first millions following the family tradition set by his father and grandfather in the world of professional wrestling. But that was only after earning a scholarship to the University of Miami, where he played on the school’s national championship football team in 1991, playing again for the title in 1992 and ’95.

It was after graduation that he developed “The Rock” character, performing to more than 10 million fans a week on television, plus domestic and international live audiences that often topped 70,000 people. He was regularly selling out such venues as the Houston Astrodome, Madison Square Garden and the Toronto Sky Dome.

His autobiography, “The Rock Says,” became a New York Times best-seller, and he even had a platinum-selling album with his WWE music compilation, performing with such artists and Wyclef Jean.

Return to wrestling

But as his movie career grew, “The Rock’s” wrestling fans saw less and less of their hero in the ring — until recently. In 2011, Johnson renewed his relationship with the WWE, hosting WrestleMania XXVII and the main event for WWE’s November 2011 “Survivor Series” at Madison Square Garden.

“I quietly retired from wrestling, and for those who don’t know, I’m going back,” Johnson said.

On April 1, Johnson will be the star attraction at WrestleMania XXVIII in his hometown of Miami, Fla. He will face WWE superstar John Cena.

“The goal is to go back for one night and create the biggest match in the history of the WWE,” he said.

“We could create something for the fans, plus I was passionate about the business, I loved it.”

And Johnson isn’t worried about possibly damaging that movie star face of his.

“Yes, well, the beauty of that is we control everything,” he said with that dazzling grin of his. “That’s just the way it is. It’s a crazy business. You go in with all (good) intentions to entertain the audience. But things happen.”

So it seems 2012 is a year of comebacks for this man who began his journey in a rundown part of paradise.

“Never did I imagine that I would be able to come back (to Hawaii) and not only come back, but come back as someone,” Johnson said. “That was something that I wanted so badly, and not only that, but come back and bring a huge movie here, and what that does for the local economy, and what that does for local businesses. And that’s special. That’s really special.”

There’s nothing like a gnarly-cute family of whales in dire distress to pluck a nation’s heartstrings, ignite an international media frenzy, mobilize the National Guard, foster a truce between big oil and Greenpeace and bring about a thaw in the Cold War.

Drew Barrymore

That’s the cumulative effect of “Big Miracle,” a feel-good nature drama inspired by the amazing true story of three California gray whales that became trapped in the ice off the coast of Barrow, Alaska, in 1988 and set off a perfect media storm that led to an incredible rescue effort to save their lives.

Adapted from the book “Saving the Whales” by Thomas Rose, this decidedly family-friendly film feels in some ways like a throwback to the old Walt Disney wildlife films of yore. Under the steady hand of journeyman director Ken Kwapis (“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and loads of TV credits), the often funny, honestly emotional tale attracted a remarkable cast of stars.

With Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski (“The Office”) as prickly romantic leads, the impressive ensemble also includes Ted Danson as a blustery oil tycoon, Tulsa native Tim Blake Nelson as an Alaska wildlife ranger, Dermot Mulroney as a hot-shot military pilot, Kristen Bell as an ambitious L.A. television reporter and Kathy Baker as the oil baron’s whale-loving wife.

And amid all that star power, two newcomers deliver standout performances that neatly ground the film in the natural world and ancient Inuit culture. John Pingayak lends an abiding spirituality and earthy wisdom to the role of Malik, Eskimo village elder and old-school whaler, and fresh young Ahmaeogak Sweeney nicely bridges the gap between ancient and modern ways as Malik’s smart, rock ‘n’ roll-loving grandson, Nathan.

The story is set in motion when Krasinki’s small-town TV reporter Adam Carlson happens upon three gray whales trapped in a rapidly freezing ice pack, able to surface only through a small hole in the ice to breathe. With their access to the open sea and their southern migration route blocked, the mother, father and baby whales (later dubbed Fred, Wilma and Bamm-Bamm) are in grave danger of drowning.

In quick order, Adam’s local news feed is picked up by national wires, and the whales’ plight ignites a rolling wave of sympathy – spurred on by the fiery lobbying of local Greenpeace activist Rachel Kramer (Barrymore) – that eventually reaches all the way to the Reagan White House and the Kremlin.

Soon enough, little, barren Barrow is inundated by noisy network news crews, which sets up some funny scenes of local gouging (an enchilada dinner for $20 and a motel room for $500 a night – cash only). Amid the growing frenzy to save the whales, smaller individual stories also play out concerning Adam’s career and his love for Rachel, Nathan’s tug between the go-go outside world and his grandfather’s steady, timeless wisdom and so on.

All in all, it’s a nice balance between individual mini-dramas and an epic rescue saga.

The latter is made more urgent and believable by some wonderful visual effects work that renders the three animatronic whales in all their scarred, barnacled, sad-eyed glory. And the former is made thoroughly engaging by likable performances from Krasinski and Barrymore, the debuts of brilliant native actors Pingayak and Sweeney and sturdy support by the always reliable Nelson and the slyly bombastic Danson.

- Dennis King

“Big Miracle”

PG
2:03
3 stars
Starring: John Krasinski, Drew Barrymore, Ahmaogak Sweeney, Tim Blake Nelson
(Language)

Dane DeHaan

“Chronicle,” the impressive debut picture of director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis, mashes up conventions of several genres – from teen-angst dramas to superhero sagas (most notably “Spider-Man”) to found-footage films (think everything from “The Blair Witch Project” to “Paranormal Activity” and “Cloverfield”) – yet still manages to seem novel and innovative.

For freshmen, their work is remarkably bold and self-assured. That may be due to their lofty Hollywood pedigrees. Trank is the son of Oscar-winning documentarian Richard Trank (“The Long Way Home”), and Landis’ dad is John Landis, maker of such landmark comedies as “Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers.” So they would appear to have filmmaking in their blood.

With the quick, savvy “Chronicle,” they glibly employ the shopworn convention of found footage and put a video camera in the hands of anguished high-schooler Andrew Detmar (Dane DeHaan) to record a sort of Bizarro World version of “Spider-Man,” with Peter Parker turning his powers to the dark side.

Andrew is a fairly typical teen type – highly sensitive, shy, bullied at school and enduring a cruel home life with a bed-ridden, terminally ill mother and an abusive, alcoholic father. Early on, after one of his father’s violent tirades, he picks up a used video camera and declares he “will film everything from here on out.”

The cool, philosophy-spouting Matt (Alex Russell) is Andrew’s cousin and only friend, and one night he drags Andrew and his camera to a boozy party. There, the two hook up with popular class presidential candidate Steve (Michael B. Jordan) and happen upon a mysterious cave-like sinkhole in the woods.

The three brashly make their way down into the dank passage with camera in hand, and what they discover there radically changes their lives and their fates.

Leap ahead a few days, and Andrew, Matt and Steve find themselves enduring mysterious nosebleeds and feeling strange, telekinetic sensations. Soon, to their boyish delight, they discover that they each have magical powers to move things with their minds.

At first, they employ their rapidly advancing superpowers for childish games and pranks – levitating Legos and moving people’s cars around in parking lots. But as their powers grow stronger (Andrew being the most adept at using them), they find that they can create tsunamis of force waves and they can even fly.

Matt, well versed in the philosophies of Jung and Schopenhauer, recognizes the potential dangers and urges caution. Good-time Steve tries to find a way to use their newfound powers to make Andrew popular with snotty classmates.

But, Andrew, obviously scarred and angry deep inside, is torn between his desire for acceptance and his hurt at past abuses. Gradually, he finds himself sorely tempted to use his psychic musles to wreck revenge on his tormentors. And when he coldly and telekinetically pulls apart a spider, we see which path he’s on.

Trank shapes the story’s formulaic contours deftly and turns the thing from lighthearted to bloody minded with smooth, uncommon skill. Even the old found-footage technique, fraught with its problems of logic, comes across in his hands as fluid and natural.

With its taut and smart script, sharp and full-bodied performances by three unknown actors and impressive visual effects on a relatively low budget ($15 million), “Chronicle” gives us a snappy new-school spin on several old-school tropes. It proves that invigorating, innovative and playful filmmaking can still be crafted with used parts.

- Dennis King

“Chronicle”

PG-13
1:24
3 ½ stars
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Anna Wood, Dane DeHaan
(Intense action and violence, thematic material, some language, sexual content and teen drinking)

Sandra Bullock, Thomas Horn

NEW YORK – Sandra Bullock remembers exactly where she was on Sept. 11, 2001, when two hijacked jetliners crashed into Lower Manhattan’s Twin Towers.

She was at a boutique hotel in Soho. But, being a media-savvy celebrity, she declines to say exactly which hotel, for fear that her revelation would be interpreted as some sort of commercial endorsement.

“But I had full view of both towers,” she said. “I was there, I saw the second plane, I saw people, I saw people helping people. And that for me is what resonates about the city of New York. I saw within a second the entire city come together and help one another in a way they hadn’t the day before.”

During press interviews for the Oscar-nominated film “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” hosted by Warner Bros. at the Regency Hotel, Bullock talked about the cathartic nature of acting in a movie that addresses the excruciating aftermath 9/11 for families of victims.

In the film (her first role since winning the Oscar for “The Blind Side”), Bullock plays Linda Schell, widow of a man killed in the terrorist attack and the mother of a precocious young son who embarks on a painstaking journey around the city to come to terms with his beloved father’s senseless death.

Bullock said she believes the film has the potential to help people heal, but she rejects the idea that it will bring about any sense of closure.

“There will never be closure, I think for me or for so many people,” she said. “I have so many memories and emotions of it, some that still don’t register I think because your mind doesn’t let you register why someone would do that. So in a good way I hope (the memory) doesn’t ever leave, that vibrancy of what happened afterward, because it made me aware of so many things I wasn’t aware of before. So no closure but as long as everyone can talk about it and grieve I think that’s what this story is, the allowance to talk about this thing and be able to grieve.”

Bullock was born and raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., but in many ways she said she considers herself a New Yorker.

“My father was a voice teacher and we’d go back and forth between here and D.C.,” she said. “And my mother sang opera here, so we were always on the trains coming to New York.

“My first memory, my mom took me to see ‘All That Jazz’ on Broadway, and at that moment I knew I wanted to become a dancer,” Bullock recalled. “Did I become a dancer? No. I’m a big girl. But it’s one of my great passions, when I saw ‘All That Jazz’ and I saw the live performances.

“(New York) has always been where we went,” she said. “We had a tiny little studio apartment with a kitchen in the closet. We slept on floors and pulled out couches. In New York, there’s something for everyone. You never feel out of place in New York City. That’s a fact. Unless you’re a really poorly dressed tourist with the black socks and sandals. I think no one should wear polyester black socks and sandals. That should just be outlawed.”

- Dennis King

Praise be to Vera Farmiga for proving to be as miraculous behind the camera as she is in front of it with “Higher Ground,” one of 2011′s bravest dramatic creations, now available in a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack.

Many a filmmaker would be daunted by this bold screenplay based on a memoir by Carolyn S. Briggs about her life in an evangelical Christian community, but Farmiga steps up with a sure yet sensitive hand, drawing uniformly strong performances from an excellent ensemble cast.

And Farmiga shines brightest of all in the central role of Corrine, a woman who shakes up the devout members of the radical New Testament church when she dares to question the religious dogma she has embraced all of her adult life. Corrine and her husband, Ethan, had turned to dedicated Christianity as young newlyweds after their baby daughter narrowly escaped death in the crash of Ethan’s rock band’s van.

Now, after years of daily Bible study, strict family practices and bracing for the Rapture, a growing feeling of spiritual emptiness and disillusionment — plus a tragedy that befalls one of her best female friends — causes Corrine’s faith to falter, which in turn triggers the growing resentment of the rest of the flock and the unraveling of her marriage.

Farmiga’s sister Taissa makes an impressive acting debut as Corrine at 18, and Dagmara Dominczyk is priceless as best friend Annaka, a true believer with a bawdy sense of humor and an openness about sexuality that rekindles Corrine’s own carnal curiosity.

But what’s most remarkable about Vera Farmiga’s first time in the director’s chair is the skill with which she handles the touchy subject of blind faith and religious fervor without condescension, while presenting a truthful portrait of the self-described “Jesus freak” culture and one woman’s troubled spirituality. At the same time, she manages to tell a story that is emotionally rich and at turns funny, poignant and powerful.

Bonus features: Deleted scenes, commentary with Vera Farmiga, Joshua Leonard (Ethan) and producer Renn Hawkey.

— Gene Triplett

Many a Sam Peckinpah fan and especially admirers of the wild and woolly director’s 1971 version of “Straw Dogs” rolled their eyes at the news that film critic-turned-filmmaker Rod Lurie (“The Contender”) had had the audacity to attempt a remake of this controversial story of savage survival instinct awakened in the soul of a pacifist.

The original, co-written by Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman from a novel by Gordon Williams, centered on peace-loving American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) and his restless British wife, Amy (Susan George), who move to her hometown and face increasingly vicious harassment from working-class locals, led by one of her ex-boyfriends.

Critics and moviegoers alike were polarized by the film’s excessive and graphic violence, and detractors labeled Peckinpah a “merciless misogynist” for making the Amy character a submissive, teasing, immature young woman who becomes aroused in the midst of being raped. In writer-director Lurie’s update, Oklahoma City-born actor James Marsden’s David is a nonviolent screenwriter and Kate Bosworth’s Amy is a strong, assertive film actress. Her small hometown is Blackwater, Miss., and the couple travel there to prepare her rural family home for sale after her father’s death.

Once there, conflicts emerge with local rednecks, including Amy’s old ex-high school football hero boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgard) and his sadistic ex-coach turned town troublemaker and drunk (a well-cast James Woods), and tensions slowly build to an eruption of  wanton and life-threatening mayhem, eventually forcing both David and Amy to turn as brutal and deadly as their tormentors. 

While Peckinpah’s classic study in blood lust and what really constitutes rape brought accusations raining down upon him of galloping misogyny and shameless pandering to his audience’s baser instincts (as lamost all of his films did), Lurie’s new slant attempts to pose thoughtful questions about the moral price paid for loosing the killer inside.

Like the original, Lurie’s is a corker of a thriller. It just doesn’t bring the visceral gusto of  “Bloody” Sam’s double-barreled slamdance, which offers the rare opportunity of watching Dustin Hoffman turn bad-ass. 

DVD extras: “Courting Controversy: Remaking a Classic,” “The Dynamics of Power: The Ensemble,” “Inside the Siege: The Ultimate Showdown,” “Commentary with Writer/Director Rod Lurie.”

— Gene Triplett

Max von Sydow

NEW YORK – With silent movies getting a boost from the success of “The Artist,” Frenchman Michel Hazanavicius’ affectionate tribute, another talking picture now in theaters features a silent performance that would do the early cinema pioneers proud.

In “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” the iconic 82-year-old Swedish actor Max von Sydow delivers a potent, emotional and totally wordless performance as The Renter, a mute boarder who accompanies the story’s young protagonist on a spiritual quest around New York City in the wake of 9/11. This week, he received an Oscar nomination for the role as Best Supporting Actor.

“The Renter is like everybody else, he communicates but he communicates in his own way. He speaks, but he doesn’t talk,” von Sydow said during a pre-release press conference presented by Warner Bros. “(The role) is an interesting variety. It’s not that different from any normal part. I enjoyed it very much. It’s a challenge in a way, but, what do you do as an actor? You try to imagine what is going on in this person’s mind and you react to what is going on around you.

“I didn’t feel that (the role) was very much different,” the actor said. “I was very taken by the script when I read it. I was extremely moved, which doesn’t happen that often, I’m sorry to say, and wanted immediately to be part of it, particularly when I was told that Stephen (Daldry) was going to direct it.

Von Sydow’s performance is a lesson in body language, nuanced facial expression and subtle communication without words.

As to the part’s silent aspect, von Sydow said, “It’s not a matter of learning lines, it’s a matter of getting into the ideas and the, how should I say, the will of the person. What does he want to do, what does he want to achieve? And all that is inside The Renter, even if he doesn’t talk.”

Von Sydow got his start in Swedish theater and cinema and came to international attention through his work in the movies of Ingmar Bergman (“The Seventh Seal,” “Wild Strawberries” “The Virgin Spring”). He earned an Oscar nomination for acting for his part in the 1987 Swedish and Danish production “Pelle the Conqueror.”

- Dennis King

Rachel Weisz

BY DENNIS KING

NEW YORK – Sitting side by side, actress Rachel Weisz and former United Nations peacekeeper Kathy Bolkovac couldn’t appear more physically different, and yet the two women shared a single-minded persona in the making of “The Whistleblower,” a searing fact-based story about human sex trafficking in war-ravaged Bosnia.

Weisz, Oscar winner for “The Constant Gardener,” is a petite, brunette Londoner who speaks in a lilting English accent.

Bolkovac, a single mother, veteran Nebraska police officer and former U.N peacekeeper, is a sturdy blond who speaks in the broad tones of her native Midwest.

But in “The Whistleblower,” Weisz steps into Bolkovac’s shoes with gritty determination to portray her in the story of one honest peacekeeper who arrives in Bosnia and uncovers a network of brutal brothels that import teenage girls from Eastern Europe as sex slaves. When Bolkovac tries to blow the whistle, she further discovers a dire tangle of complicity among fellow peacekeepers and a series of bureaucratic roadblocks, denials and cover-ups among certain powerful diplomatic officials.

During a press conference at the Regency Hotel hosted by Samuel Goldwyn Films, Weisz said after she first read the story she couldn’t get it out of her head.

“When I was first offered the role I was pregnant, very pregnant,” the actress said. “And I thought that this was one of the most incredible stories and scripts that I’d ever read. But it was too challenging and traumatic to engage with at that moment because of my physical state. I just couldn’t get my head around it, but I couldn’t forget it.

“I suppose I was haunted by this story, and it just kept coming back into my mind,” she said. “And after I think it was two years I called the producer and said, ‘Hey, that script, “The Whistleblower” …,’ and I don’t know the details but it was embroiled somewhere. Anyway, nine months later we were shooting.”

The film was shot on location in and around Bucharest, Romania, and Weisz said from the beginning she felt a very close bond with the real-life woman she was portraying.

“Kathy and I met a week into filming,” Weisz said. “And I realized immediately that she was not just a generic tough cop. She was a very specific human being.”

“I couldn’t wait to meet her,” Bolkovac said. “I’d seen her in ‘The Constant Gardener,’ of course, and just found her to be so intelligent, along with her beauty. And I thought, wow, somebody like her is going to play me.”

Weisz recalled: “Kathy came to Bucharest with Jan (Van Der Velde, her partner), the man my character meets in the movie and Kathy is now with. And we went to dinner, and I basically hung out with her every spare moment I had, asking her questions. You know, as an actor that’s a great experience.

“The story was based on Kathy’s life, so what better source material – sorry to call you that – could I have?” Weisz said. “It was fantastic. I talked to her about her childhood, about her kids, about being a mom, about being a cop. It was wonderful. Hopefully in a few moments there are a couple of improvs in the film where I think I got her sense of humor.”
Bolkovac said she truly appreciated Weisz’s thoroughness, interest and commitment to telling her story accurately.

“That’s what I really appreciated about Rachel,” Bolkovac said. “She was so interested in who I was as a person. Not, obviously, to look like me or to behave like me, but to make sure that my character came out and to make sure that she was saying and doing things perhaps the way that I would’ve wanted them done. And I know that there had to be a lot of liberties taken to make the movie. But I think in general she does do a great job of bringing my character to the film.”

Weisz said she believes “The Whistleblower” is not just a powerful drama but also an important vehicle for alerting the world to an ongoing tragedy and injustice.

“I guess it’s my favorite genre of movies,” she said, “but maybe I shouldn’t be calling it a genre because I can only think of two films like that, ‘Silkwood,’ starring Meryl Streep, and ‘Erin Brockovich,’ starring Julia Roberts. You know, both quote-unquote stories about ordinary women, moms who just David and Goliath-style see injustice and go after a huge corporation or organization.

“And I get goose bumps watching those movies because these women are heroes,” Weisz said. “When you talk to Kathy about it, she just says, ‘I was just doing my job. I was a police officer and I was there to report crime, I found crime, I went after it.’ I just find that so intensely moving that she didn’t think she was doing anything extraordinary. She was just literally doing her job. But no one else was, and that’s what makes her an extraordinary woman.”

In the realm of true-life stories about courageous women fighting a corrupt, oppressive system, “The Whistleblower” falls squarely in a league with “Silkwood” and “Erin Brockovich,” movies that struggled to juggle righteous moral outrage with their stories’ dramatic imperatives.

Rachel Weisz

Based on the true experiences of Kathryn Bolkovac a veteran Lincoln, Neb., police officer who accepted a lucrative private-contactor job in 1999 to serve as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia, “The Whistleblower” relates a troubling story of police corruption and bureaucratic indifference that allegedly reached into some of the highest ranks of United Nations.

Directed by first timer Larysa Kondracki (who co-wrote the script with Eilis Kirwan), the film offers up an earnest and well-grounded condemnation of human sex trafficking, a heartbreaking human-rights atrocity that thrived in post-war Eastern Europe and by all accounts continues to be a worldwide scourge even today.

Bolkovac’s experience, related in grimly compelling if occasionally ponderous detail, aptly dramatizes the horrifying human toll this highly organized criminal enterprise exerts on victims and their families.

Bolkovac (played with unflinching determination by Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz) is a hardworking Nebraska police officer and divorced mother who accepts a high-paying, yearlong job as a contract peacekeeper as a way to finance a later move closer to her young daughter.

Arriving in gloomy, shattered Eastern Europe, she’s idealistic and determined to do right, even if her rag-tag band of fellow international policemen are far more cavalier in their duties. The conscientious Bolkovac quickly rises to head the U.N.’s Gender Office, assigned to investigate sexual assault, domestic abuse and sex trafficking.

And soon, she uncovers the case of two teenaged Ukrainian girls lured into sexual slavery at one of Bosnia’s thriving brothels. One frightened girl, Raya (Roxana Condurache), agrees to testify against her abductors and the U.N. peacekeepers that have abused her and kept her in bondage.

In the increasingly shadowy and risky campaign to blow the whistle on the crime syndicate and her fellow officers, Bolkovac has behind-the-scenes encouragement from Human Rights Commission head Madeleine Rees (a solemn Vanessa Redgrave) and a skittish U.N. official (David Strathairn). But a menacing clique of corrupt police and spineless bureaucrats conspires against Bolkovac as a rising sense of intrigue and danger takes hold of the story.

Unfortunately, Kondracki isn’t yet a deft enough director to effectively balance the film’s high-minded social ideals against its gut-level dramatic intrigue. Even Weisz’s dogged, eloquent performance and the strong presence of stellar supporting players can’t prevent the film from tracking more toward sober, angry social treatise than compelling political thriller.

- Dennis King

In George Lucas’ years-in-the-making “Red Tails,” the famed Tuskegee Airmen are freighted with such a heavy load of physics-defying digital effects, a crew of such clunky, clichéd characters and a script so laden with over-the-top melodrama that their soaring story of heroism in the face of institutionalized racism very nearly goes down in flames.

Terrance Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr.

With Lucas at the throttle as executive producer (marshaling a visual effects force that numbers some 485 personnel), this old-fashioned World War II epic naturally features its share of eye-popping, whiz-bang aerial battle scenes – dog fights with buzzing, swooping, curlicueing P-40 Warhawks and P-51 Mustangs doing battle with Luftwaffe Messerschmidt Bf-109s and ME-262s amid the lumbering of bomb-burdened B-17 Flying Fortresses.

Lucas and his director, Anthony Hemingway (“Treme” and dozens more TV credits), definitely know how to deliver big, bold, stomach-knotting CGI scenes. It’s when they attempt to ground their war story in human-level drama that their film sputters badly.

The inspirational story of America’s first squadron of African-American fighter pilots in World War II has been told before on screen, in 1995’s far better HBO drama “The Tuskegee Airmen,” with Laurence Fishburne, Countney B. Vance and Andre Braugher leading a stellar cast.

Lucas has assembled an equally fine cast here, but the pedestrian and heavily fictionalized script by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder doesn’t do them justice.

The tale opens with the 332nd Fighter Group (soon to be nicknamed the Red Tails for obvious reasons) wasting away behind the lines in Italy, flying meaningless, busy-work missions in rattletrap old P-40s.

They’re a colorful crew of stereotypes, misfits and comic-book aces with handles like Lightning (David Oyelowo) and Easy (Nate Parker), bickering best friends at the center of the drama. Surrounding them are one-issue characters such as Sticks (Method Man), Junior (Tristan Wilds), Smoky (Ne-Yo), Joker (Elijah Kelley) and Bumps (Michael B. Jordan).

Away in Washington, D.C., lobbying his bigoted white superiors (notably Brian Cranston and Gerald McRaney) for a combat assignment is the saintly C.O., Col A.J Bullard (Terrance Howard), and keeping patient watch over the restless airman in Italy is the pipe-chomping Maj. Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr.).

When they’re not up in the air dueling Nazis (epitomized by a cruel, scar-faced, Red Baron-type flyer who utters lines like “Show them no mercy”), the airmen are struggling with a formulaic array of personal conflicts (secret alcoholism, love for a pretty Italian girl, fist fights with white bigots, failure to follow orders and so on).

There are some engaging moments here and there, and despite the stilted dialogue and the cut-and-paste storyline the actors deliver strong and earnest performances all around.

Though the script often plays fast and loose with history, there are some worthy references to the history-making accomplishments and strategic innovations of the Tuskegee flyers who were nearly flawless in their mission of escorting bombers deep into Nazi Germany. Their heroic story, without all the strained dramatic machinations brought to bear by Lucas and company, is stirring and compelling enough to stand on its own.

That “Red Tails” gussies things up with a lot of forced emotional rhetoric and overheated melodrama is a failure to trust the honest drama of history. It’s like pasting gaudy, synthetic plumage on an already beautiful bird.

- Dennis King

“Red Tails”

PG-13
2:05
2 stars
Starring: Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., David Oyelowo, Ne-Yo
(Some sequences of war violence)