Movie Nation

“Hunter Hunter” is a nasty little piece of work, a thriller that points us in obvious directions and takes its time getting to its destination.

But nasty. If the object of horror is “to horrify,” this predators-become-prey tale delivers and finishes with a flourish you won’t soon forget.

Devon Sawa and Camille Sullivan play parents/partners who’ve made a life in the woods of Manitoba circa 1990. Joe supports them by trapping, and he’s teaching what he knows of the woods and the hunt to their twelve year old daughter Renee (Summer H. Howell).

But one morning walking the trap line, they find a leg — all that’s left of the raccoon the spring trap caught.

“It’s back.” Renee says what Joe won’t say. A wolf that stalked them some while back must have returned. Anne has to drag it out of him when they get back to the cabin.

“It’s attracted to us,” she decides. “We’re its steady food supply,” because they provide the trapped prey and their cabin full of fleshy white meat humans. She’s anxious to get Fish & Wildlife on the case, but Joe — third generation trapper, on this land which they may not have a clear claim to,and macho man of the forest, won’t hear of it.

“Fish cops gonna do what I can’t?”

He will pack up traps and his scoped hunting rifle, read the signs and hunt the hunter. No daughter tag-along this time.

“First get used to animals that run,” he counsels. “Then you can hunt the ones that chase!”

Writer-director Shawn Linden (“The Good Lie”) deftly lays out the dynamics of the family, Anne’s realization that “the world has passed us” and their way of living by. She can’t feed her child, he can’t support them on the falling price of pelts, and a trip to “town” has her pining over real estate ads and envying normal families walking their kids to the school bus.

Joe has to lie about dangers that they face just to keep from losing the argument and the only way of life he knows. What do you think he does when he gets a shot at their stalker, only to see what the canine was chowing down on when he missed?

It’s a human forearm and hand.

Linden’s separated his protagonists. He’s raised the stakes, with Dad out on a stalk that just turned deadlier. And Anne can’t even fetch water from the river without a justifiable freak-out over the noises she hears in the underbrush.

Renee may be her Daddy’s girl and know how to shoot his old lever-action Winchester .22. But she’s still a child, and children are prone to panic and scream as they do.

And like Mom, Renee has reason enough to scream soon enough.

Linden addresses the cruelty implicit in trapping, the suffering it inflicts and how kill-your-own-meat isn’t for every sensibility. The local wildlife officers (Lauren Cochrane and Gabriel Daniels) are more interested in what this family is doing out in this dense forest than in the wolf Anne says they’re threatened by.

Linden also makes the most of the “period piece” aspect of all this. “Sat phones” haven’t yet been displaced by cell phones, “yuppies” are invading the wilderness — and endangering the wildlife with their clueless ways. There’s no calling for help out here.

And something that isn’t a wolf has come into these woods and killed, so Joe, “stronger than any animal in this forest,” had better prove it.

“Final Destination” and TV’s “Somewhere Between” alumnus Sawa is quite convincing at the primitive man of the woods, confident in his skills, choosing his wolf-and-other-killers hunting gear — traps — with care.

Sullivan (“The Disappearance”) gets across the callouses one has to develop to live a life this hard and brutal, but also the more sensitive mother she always has to hide.

And Linden, while hard-pressed to take this anywhere we don’t see from a mile off, manages several tense moments and scenes with real suspense, before delivering a finale that’s a grim, teeth-gritting corker.

MPA Rating: unrated, violence, profanity

Cast: Camille Sullivan, Summer H. Howell, Devon Sawa, Nick Stahl, Lauren Cochrane and Gabriel Daniels

Credits: Scripted and directed by Shawn Linden. An IFC Midnight release.

Running time: 1:32

They’re on the road, uprooted but resilient, migrating with the seasons, following work or just avoiding the bitter cold or murderous heat. But don’t call them “homeless.”

“I’m not homeless,” “Nomadland” van-dweller Fern, played by Oscar winner Frances McDormand, explains to the child of an old friend. “I’m just houseless.”

Filmmaker Chloé Zhao makes Fern both our tour guide and our introduction to this rootless subculture in “Nomadland,” an elegiac character study and somber docudrama about Americans living on the edge.

These are lives in the open spaces, touched by the romance of the open road. But it’s an existence with little margin for error, a nationwide population who are the new Okies in a modern “Grapes of Wrath.”

We meet Fern driving her aged panel van from her hometown of Empire, Nevada, a one-factory town that lost its factory and its zip code within months of each other. Widowed and alone, she migrates to the first of a string of new “homes” and temporary, seasonal jobs — an Amazon packing and distribution center.

Over the course of “Nomadland” Fern will clean toilets at Badlands National Park and cook at famed tourist attraction Wall Drugs in South Dakota, shovel beets in Nebraska, and learn about this lifestyle from its elders — people like the 70something Swankie (Charlene Swankie) and camper-nomad guru Bob Bell, both playing versions of themselves.

Fern makes friends, and friends like Linda May look out for each other, point her to places where there’s work. But have a flat that you can’t fix on your own in a place with no cell service, and Swankie will give you an earful.

“You can DIE out here.”

We have hints of what’s put Fern in this state of affairs, and Zhao leaves details out, focusing on the interior journey. Thus, an employment counselor suggests Fern “consider early retirement” may mean well. But Social Security, social service help and healthcare are not in the picture, as indeed they aren’t for millions of Americans.

Bell, creator of Youtube tutorials on how to manage this life, preaches to the nearly-converted at an Arizona gathering of nomads whimsically named the RTR — “Rubber Tramp Rendezvous.” They’re escaping “the tyranny of the dollar” and “the yoke of capitalism.”

Zhao, who first gained fame with her somberly reflective rodeo drama “The Rider,” romanticizes this lifestyle without sentimentalizing it.

A fellow nomad in an RV park has a stroke and his dog needs a new owner and home. We want Fern to take it. She won’t. Sad-eyed and somewhat clumsy Dave, played by David Strathairn, shyly makes his interest in Fern’s company known. Does he have a prayer?

It’s implied Fern has to fret — like everybody else who lives like this — where she’s allowed to park for the night or camp on the cheap. By emphasizing (probably exaggerating) the friendly, communal nature of this existence, Zhao leaves most of the dangers involved out. Statistically, the people who take to the roads this way are almost all broke, almost entirely white, and that’s the world Zhao shows us.

Solitary Fern is choosy about who she’ll get arms-length-close to, determined to be self-sufficient, taking stock of just how hard that is when she hits her sister (Melissa Smith) up for cash. But she’s also totally present in her free time, taking nature walks in National Parks, visiting gigantic concrete dinosaurs, dropping in on a stargazing excursion and skinny dipping solo in a rocky western river.

McDormand lets us see a smile here and there. But the odd outgoing moment doesn’t hide Fern’s thousand-yard stare, the sadness we sense and the eyes-down focus on the next step, next fill-up, next repair, next parking lot, next job, next meal and next public restroom.

No guru enthusiast or colorful TV feature story about the “romance” of it all can hide that this is a very limited, depressing way to live. And one of the finest actresses of her generation makes us sense that and the pondering Fern must do, weighing how much of this rotten poker hand life has dealt her and also which forks in the road that she has taken brought her here.

“Nomadland” is a film of stark beauty and grim, grey reality.

As with “The Rider,” Zhao is sparing with her dialogue and lets images and acting do most of the storytelling. She rewards the viewer who can guess how Fern is able to shower off this day’s work at the beet processing refinery, who picks up on Dave’s shortcomings — that senior style out-of-date cell phone where he keeps the PIN written on tape on the screen.

One can’t help but see this as a depiction of a lifestyle would have been impossible to romanticize in 2020 — with even many of the menial jobs Fern takes vanishing, and staggering competition for the few such gigs left. The “freedom” of “Nomadland” looks a lot less alluring in that light.

But marrying this “Grapes of Wrath” saga to a “journey of self-discovery” narrative in this blend of restlessness and dogged, “no whining” desperation makes “Nomadland” an instant indie classic and one of the best films of 2020.

MPA Rating: R for some full nudity.

Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Melissa Smith, Linda May, Bob Wells and Charlene Swankie

Credits: Written and directed by Chloé Zhao, based on the book by journalist Jessica Bruder. A Searchlight release.

Running time: 1:47

“Rose Island” is a lightly amusing if somewhat labored Italian account of one of the oddest offshoots of 1960s explorations of the limits of “freedom.”

“Micronations” they’re called, and a few bold experiments of this sort — creating your own country — from that era inspired scores of imitators in the decades since.

Co-writer and director Sydney Sibilia (he did the Italian “I Can Quit Whenever I Want” comedies) tells a simple, romance with nuts-and-bolts- story set against the turbulent decade’s most infamous year, 1968. We only hear about student protests taking over campuses all over the world, roiling governments, including whatever shaky administration was running Italy. Because what’s really going on here is a hapless engineer wants to create his own offshore state to impress a woman.

Giorgio Rosa, played by Elio Germano (“Lucia’s Grace”) has just finished engineering school, building his own car for his final project. But the lovely legal assistant he’s known since childhood, Gabriella (Matilda De Angelis) sees him for the ditzy dreamer he is. He built a car he can drive her home in, sure. He just forget to register it and get license plates.

Getting jailed is no way to convince her to move on from the more stable Carlo. “You are NOT as smart as you think you are,” (in Italian with English subtitles) is her final kiss-off, without the kiss.

Dad says he needs to “just be normal,”: take a real job where Dad works — Ducati motorcycles.

But the guy who “lives in his own world” sees a billboard advertising offshore drilling platform construction, and he has his quest. With builder-pal Maurizio (Leonardo Lidi) he will build a platform on a shallow piece of the ocean floor, just clear of Italian waters. And that’s just what they do.

“We can live the way we like” on their “independent state,” he promises Maurizio. But a lawn chair on an almost-too-low “island” is not a lot of fun in a storm. Still, when cruising sailor Pietro (Alberto Astorri) shipwrecks there, they have a “population.”

When German army deserter and club-operator Rudy (Tom Wlaschiha) checks the place out, he sees a party spot, and one that can be turned into a cash cow. “Rose Island,” as their “discothèque” is named, is soon overrun with partiers, waterskiers and day drinkers all summer long.

Pregnant bartender Franca (Violetta Zironi) completes their brain trust.

Meanwhile, grumpy, panicky Italian authorities (Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Luca Zingaretti) are losing their ever-loving mind, distracted by this latest affront to the State, another distraction from their efforts to regain control of assorted protestor-occupied college campuses across the country. They go so far as to consult the Pope.

Sydney Sibilia’s film, titled “L’incredibile storia dell’Isola delle Rose” in Italian, frames its story in Giorgio’s late 1968 visit to the UN’s Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. Dismissive bureaucrats there (French star François Cluzet is their chief) are rattled at seeing a hole in international law, but more than willing to discuss this test case with the sniffly Italian chatterbox who insists that “he” is “a sovereign state.”

The performances and production values keep “Rose Island” above the waves, with actors striking the right whimsical tones and 1960s Italy, Strasbourg and even New York (where the UN is still headquartered) lovingly recreated.

The pacing isn’t comedy-brisk, and for all the implications of the story, what we’re shown of all the machinations and intrigues seems a tad thin. Sibilia doesn’t sweat a lot of details about how they built this thing, costs and logistics. He’s more interested in the nutty notion and the nut who had it, all to impress a very pretty almost-a-lawyer.

But the sun is out, the Cynar is on ice, we’re off the coast of Rimini listening to Italian covers of 1960s pop and everything that can go wrong doesn’t seem worth fretting over until it actually does.

Which is to say, this isn’t all that, but what’s here is cute and perfectly watchable.

MPA Rating: TV-14, profanity

Cast: Elio Germano, Matilda De Angelis, Tom Wlaschiha, Leonardo Lidi, Fabrizio Bentivoglio and François Cluzet

Credits: Directed by Sydney Sibilia, script by Francesca Manieri, Sydney Sibilia. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:57

“The Last Blockbuster” is a nostalgic documentary about how we used to find movies to watch in the Olden Days.

We’d make our way down to the corner video store, browse the aisles and perhaps stumble across a buried treasure or an old favorite. Perhaps we step into “the back” — and this was true no matter where your store was — through beaded curtains and into the “porn section.” We’d rent a VHS or Betamax tape or later DVD, watch the rented movie at home and return on pain of death or fear of the dreaded “late fees.”

Eventually, those “Mom and Pop” stores were chased out of business by Blockbuster Video. So maybe, the film unintentionally reminds us, getting nostalgic over “The Last Blockbuster” is a bit misguided.

Sandi Harding is famous in newspaper profiles, TV and youtube videos far and wide, as the “Blockbuster Mom,” the woman who runs the last Blockbuster Video store in America, an archaic holdout in Bend, Oregon. She’s the anchor interview in this light, bittersweet walk down movies-on-video memory lane, a plucky franchisee who runs a store that — as this film was being made — became the very last holdout in what was once a corporation that blundering billionaire Sumner Redstone paid $8.4 billion for.

Director Taylor Morden follows her through her routine — buying new videos, scavenging parts to keep the remaining outdated (“Floppy disc!”) computers in what was once a revolutionary database and inventory system running, cleaning up and dealing with owners Dish Network, which bought and closed all the stores, a final downsizing that started in 2013.

In between snippets of her day we’re giving the history of the company, it’s peak valuation and the blunders and 2008 stock market crash that killed it. A “customer” walks us through the ritual of how a video was rented. And we get a history of the video business that Blockbuster, growing from a single store in Dallas, eventually took over — only to lose the War with Netflix and die a forlorn death, with stores like Sandi’s and the new-closed ones in Alaska lamented or lampooned by John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight” or “Captain Marvel” in a period piece Marvel blockbuster a couple of years back.

Judging from the film’s parade of almost entirely white male interview subjects — beyond the execs who ran or run what’s left of the company — the only people harboring this nostalgia are guys on the cusp of middle age. Some are comics, some are actors like Adam Brody and Jamie Kennedy (former Blockbuster employees, in different ways) or Samm Levine and Eric Close. Ione Skye is practically a token presence representing female fans of a certain age, although having comic actress Lauren Lupkus narrate it makes it feel less male video nerd centric.

Troma Films founder and C-movie impresario Lloyd Kaufman (“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”) was NOT a fan, a lone voice of dissent in this “I still have my membership card” love-in. His anti “corporate” mentality rant is the second funniest thing in the film, after the John Oliver bit where he tried to “Save” the last Alaska Blockbuster with Russell Crowe memorabilia.]

Thorough as it is in covering the history of the company and the retail phenomenon — my first newspaper feature story was visiting and grading all the videos in a small city where I worked, which led to my first hate mail and angry calls — “Last Blockbuster” plays like a TV feature story that goes on too long.

MPA Rating: unrated

Cast: Sandi Harding, Jamie Kennedy, Samm Levine, Lloyd Kaufman, Adam Brody, Eric Close, Ken Tisher and Tom Case, narrated by Lauren Lupkus.

Credits: Directed by Taylor Morden, script by Zeke Kamm. A 1091 release.

Running time: 1:26

“News of the World” is a stately, almost old-fashioned Western saga about a widowed Civil War veteran trying to do right by one orphaned girl in 1870 Texas. There are hints of “The Searchers” in this quest to take a child “home,” and a whiff of Mark Twain’s story and attitudes in its tale of a well-spoken man making his way by doing readings from the world’s newspapers as entertainment to the locals.

And in the hands of Tom Hanks and his “Captain Phillips” director, Paul Greengrass, this adaptation of a Paulette Jiles novel becomes a Western parable for these “troubled times,” a story of race and unrepentant racism, men of violence who won’t give up that violence and the power of a free press to rectify that.

Hanks is Captain Jefferson Kirby Kidd, late of the Third Texas Infantry, a man who has to travel his own “Blue Bellies” (Federal troops) occupied state with a copy of his “Loyalty Oath.” The “late unpleasantness” is an open sore in unreconstructed Texas.

His readings in towns too small for a newspaper or otherwise limited in their news (“low information voters”) come from The Carthage Banner and The Clifton Record, The Dallas Herald, The Times of India and the New York Times. The stories, which haven’t trickled to Wichita Falls and the like, draw gasps, applause and bursts of outrage.

But weathered, white-bearded Captain Kidd has learned how to work a crowd, stirring the heart or calming troubled waters.

The last thing this solitary man needs is trouble on the trail, which is just what he gets when he stops at a wrecked wagon. The Black trooper who drove it has been lynched. And the soldier’s cargo is a blonde girl (Helena Zengel) rescued by troops when they slaughtered the Indian tribe that took her as a hostage years before after slaughtering her family.

She is wild, if not quite feral, speaking only Kiowa and snatches of German she remembers. Captain Kidd tries to pass her off to the Feds, but they’d just as soon he take her to her folks in Castroville, 400 miles away.

Along the way, he will consult with old acquaintances (Elizabeth Marvel, Ray McKinnon and Mare Winningham), try to carry on making a living and face the “dangers” of the road in largely-lawless post-War central Texas.

“Bushwhackers,” veterans turned outlaws, weren’t limited to Missouri. And everywhere the “Blue Bellies” aren’t, informal militias with guns cling to their grudges, their prejudices, their power and their treason, enforcing their will by violence.

Hanks mercifully spares us his “Ladykillers” Southern accent. He’s here for what his screen presence has come to represent — decency. Kidd isn’t a gunslinger or violent Western archetype. He’s a man who realizes, reaching out to this child he has a hard time understanding, that “we both have demons to face” from their past.

Zengel throws herself into “gone native,” allowing the audience and Kidd to underestimate her. Hanks has one perfectly understated moment recognizing that as the girl Johanna reasons a way to make an ambush on the trail more of a fair fight.

But Captain Kidd isn’t here to “clean up” this or that violent town, but inform the masses. And if that entails sewing dissent among the oppressed, uninformed and brainwashed, that’s his version of heroism.

Thomas Francis Murphy, Clint Obenchain and Christopher Hagen make memorable impressions as heavies. McKinnon (“Ford v. Ferrari”) lends Southern authenticity to the proceedings. And Marvel, who played the adult Maddie Ross in the “True Grit” remake, brings an earthy sparkle to the old friend of Kidd’s who runs a boarding house and never got over the bitterness of a husband who ran off to California. Marvel’s husband, star character actor Bill Camp, has a cameo.

But the person in this production who transcends his reputation is Greengrass, known for his stunning “Bourne” action beats and pointillistic rat-at-tat editing. He slows his pacing down to a slow canter, showing us scenic vistas and unblinking ugliness — buffalo slaughter and the like. But he also gives himself to the genre’s conventions, staging a classic shoot-out on a rocky hill — a staple of virtually every Western ever — in ways that give away that everyone involved, save for the little girl, has been to war, knows how to advance on and outflank an entrenched foe.

The filmmaker and his stars haven’t reinvented the genre with this Western allegory. The fortunate thing for us is their realizing they didn’t need to.

MPA Rating: PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, thematic material and some language

Cast: Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel, Ray McKinnon, Elizabeth Marvel, Mare Winningham, Thomas Francis Murphy and Bill Camp.

Credits: Directed by Paul Greengrass, script by and Paul Greengrass and Luke Davies, based on the Paulette Jiles novel. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:58

Why? Because it’s an IFC Midnight release. And they don’t let anything out on that nameplate that doesn’t have something on the “creepy” to “scared the bejeezus outta me” scale.

Let the healing begin!

A divisive election, culture wars that separated a country into midwestern and southern cultists flirting with fascism, and everybody else led by “Broadway liberals,” and here’s a show aimed at putting a little tickle in the bitchslap America handed Red State America.

I mean, come on, Indiana et al — just sit back and TAKE it!

“The Prom” had its preaching-to-the-choir musical comedy of “inclusion” moment back in 2018. A Ryan Murphy (“Glee!”) all-star treatment of it for Netflix was sure to have the subtlety of a camp sledgehammer wrapped in chiffon. It traffics in some of the very stereotypes it sends up and wastes a Big Name here and there.

But it’s often laugh-out-loud funny, over-the-top, from its casting to its run time.

Edgewater, Indiana has just canceled its prom because the “out” gay teen in town (newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman) wants to bring her girlfriend. A Broadway musical about this woman “nobody ever heard of,” Eleanor Roosevelt, has closed on opening night. Stars Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman (Meryl Streep and James Corden).

They need a “brand” reset, a quick public way to rinse the “failure” off their resumes, “a cause…some little injustice we can drive to” as Dee Dee puts it. What outrage is “trending?” Edgewater! Joined by Angie Dickinson (?!), a never-quite-star hoofer played by Nicole Kidman and waiter-actor-Juilliard alumnus (Andrew Rannells), they hitch a ride on a “Godspell! tour bus to roll in, strike a blow for justice and tolerance and blow away those yokels with showmanship.

“We will be the biggest thing to happen in Indiana, well, whatever happened in Indiana!” They will be fish-out-water in rural America, where “this Apples and Bees” place is but speaking in tongues to the simple, giddy Great White Way folk.

Kerry Washington plays the homophobic martinet in charge of the PTA, well-cast as the villain. Keegan-Michael Key is the show-tune fanguy principal.

The story ambles from outrage to seeming triumph, ugly twists that snatch defeat from victory, and our self-righteous “narcissists” (“I still don’t understand what’s wrong with that?”) have genuine attacks of conscience and try to clean up the bigger mess they’ve made of things — with lots and lots of Broadway show references, their only point of reference.

Need to come out of your shell? Think Fosse.

“If your hands are shaking, just’em into JAZZ hands!”

Streep’s career third-act of belting showtunes continues to shock and awe. Corden will sing anything anywhere and has a light way with the sad gay Broadway who gets sentimental over this poor high school kid’s plight, although there’s little subtle about this “I’m as gay as a bucket of wigs” caricature. And girl, you know there’s a makeover coming.

Key showed off his singing in “Jingle Jangle,” and Washington has surprising vocal chops. Kidman makes the most of a faded kitten chorine’s sad but empowering moment.

As a show, the tunes range from amusing vamps to exposition-packing filler. The emotional stuff doesn’t have nearly the punch of the vain self-parodies of Broadway and its “types” and the over-the-top insults.

“This isn’t America. This is INDIANA!”

Emma’s introductory tune, “Note to self, don’t be gay in Indiana…Note to self, people suck in Indiana” is typically topical. Dee Dee’s “I read three fourths of a news story and knew I HAD to come” points the jabs the other way.

“Join with me and sing this acceptance song…bigotry’s not big of me, and it’s not big of youuuuuu.”

Coming out stories — a subtext here — may never go out of style, but this feels instantly dated. Dressing Emma in “lesbian” sweater vests, stocking cap or butch overalls has “gay as a bucket of wigs” about it, too. The whole shebang could stand a healthy 2020 “updating.”

At its heart, “The Prom” is a “let’s put on a show” musical caught up in lip service about “reaching out” across America’s divides, “confronting” religious-backed intolerance without a prayer of changing a single mind — not on Broadway, not Netflix subscribers — especially those hate-watching it.

Murphy’s direction gives it giddy moments and long, maudlin drags between them. Fans of Broadway and spoofs like “Forbidden Broadway” (and “Glee!”) will get a kick out of big names playing versions of Patti Lupone divas and every small town gay guy who ever danced his way to fame.

The “You’re not alone/It gets better” message? Those who “get it” got it years ago. Those who don’t have already moved on to other things they’ll never get.

MPA Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements, some suggestive/sexual references and language 

Cast: Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Keegan-Michael Key, Jo Ellen Pellman, Mary Kay Place, Andrew Rannells, Tracy Ullman and Kerry Washington.

Credits: Directed by Ryan Murphy, script by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin. A Netflix release.

Running time: 2:12

They don’t need an “experiment” to confirm what anybody of drinking age learns all too quickly, that there’s “tipsy” and fun, “cute” drunk, “sloppy” (sentimental) drunk and “mean” drunk.

They can see it in their students, teenagers who cut loose with a drinking-game/sprint around a local lake which inevitably gets out of hand with pranks and general drunk-and-disorderly (vomiting) excess.

But as they’re academics, four longtime friends, colleagues at a Danish high school, why not couch their “research” in scientific/philosophical terms? They can see one of their ranks, Martin (Mads Mikkelson) is hurting and kind of lost. The lonely gym teacher Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) is always down for another Tuborg. Shy and unmarried choral teacher Peter (Lars Ranthe) figures why not?

And youngest member, psychology teacher Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), the father overwhelmed by the brood back home whose birthday the other three have gathered to celebrate. He sees sad, burnt-out history teacher Martin in need of an intervention. Instead, Nikolaj quotes this Norwegian psychological theorist Finn Skårderud who has the notion humans are naturally alcohol-deprived, that our optimum BAC (blood alcohol content) is .05% off. That’s how he gets “Not tonight, I’m driving” Martin to drink with them.

After all, what harm is there in “Another Round?”

With his latest film (titled
“Druk” in Danish), Thomas Vinterberg (“The Hunt”) dips into dipsomania in its Scandinavian form. He puts four men, their relationships, their careers and their futures in a blender filled with vodka, whisky, wine, beer and absinthe and gazes in no-real-surprise at what happens.

Sure, a better title might have been “Why Men Drink.” But this character study, set against an idea as politically incorrect as as Denzel’s “drugs give this airline pilot his edge” drama “Flight,” is fascinating.

“Another Round” is one of the best pictures of the year.

The story centers on Martin, raising two sons with a nurse-wife (Maria Bonnevie) who works nights, and thus barely sees. Mikkelson, as always, lets us catch the despair in his eyes. What Martin’s students notice is a teacher who has checked-out, endangering their performance on final exams that will determine college, career options, their entire future.

His friends see the signs, maybe even his eyes tearing up. But everybody gets distracted by this “experiment” and what they’ll “discover.” Buy breathalyzers, have a snootfull in the AM, maybe a refill closer to noon, hit that .05% mark and maintain it. No drinking after 8pm, no tippling on the weekends. Because…SCIENCE.

And what follows is something the movies haven’t dared show since Mothers Against Drunk Driving took control of the alcohol narrative. The choral teacher gets interested in his students’ lives and problems, the psyche-teacher Dad lightens up. The gruff, bullying coach warms-up to the unathletic shrimp, “Specs,” he’s written off.

And Martin? He takes an interest at home, charms his wife with vacation talk and reaches his students for maybe the first time all term.

His new subject? Churchill and FDR, Hemingway, Hitler and U.S. Grant and their relationships to alcohol.

Vinterberg has a lot of fun with this sidebar, showing snippets of assorted world leaders bending an elbow, Boris Yeltsin to Boris Johnson, politicians getting the public giggles (Bill Clinton with Yeltsin after God knows HOW many vodkas).

Everybody in this teaching quartet is convinced they’re seeing proof of Skårderud’s theory.

“I haven’t felt this good in AGES!” (in Danish with English subtitles).

But remember, SCIENCE. “Why not try going a bit higher?”

And so they do, with riotous sing-alongs, boozy staggering and roughhousing, filling water bottles with vodka for the office and of course, hiding bottles at work.

What can go wrong?

Zeroing in on Martin, Vinterberg gets at the obvious points — alcohol never solves problems — and goes beyond to consider “why men drink” and drinking camaraderie group-think, drinking to not think about your problems as you “take the edge off.”

The alcohol cure (Which can’t be what Skårderud had in mind, or can it?) has its benefits, which movies haven’t dared show in decades. But there are also chiseled-in-stone statistical risks, from damaging-to-fatal BAC levels to the probability that some among the four won’t cope or come out the other side.

The Melancholy Dane Mikkelson, always on the verge of tears in most films (a near-weeping Bond villain), makes the most of a rare opportunity to play it light. We even get a dazzling taste of his pre-acting life as a dancer.

Among the supporting players, Bonnevie (“Becoming Astrid”) gives subtle shadings to “the wife is the last to know,” a wife who may have her own distractions. And Larsen, a co-star of Mikkelson and Vinterberg’s “The Hunt,” is impressive as a tough, bluff guy with a sentimental streak that a couple of beers and a whisky or two brings out.

In a year when much of the world has been stuck at home, day drinking, “Another Round” is a welcome shot of bitters with a warm cognac chaser, and a bracing/revealing renewal of a grand Danish partnership, Vinterberg and Mads his muse.

MPA Rating: unrated, alcohol abuse, sex, profanity

Cast: Mads Mikkelson, Thomas Bo Larsen, Maria Bonnevie, Magnus Millang, Lars Ranthe

Credits: Scripted and directed by Thomas Vinterberg. A Samuel Goldwyn release.’

Running time: 1:57

The novelty here, aside from the Louis Prima tune on the trailer, is that Bob punched back this time. Feb 26.

This has possibilities. A mercurial dude, a rising star in publishing.Feb. 5