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CRAZY HEART Robert Duvall appears in a supporting role in Crazy Heart and also serves as one of the film's producers. His participation in this project makes complete sense: He wanted to personally hand the baton off to Jeff Bridges. After all, Duvall won his Best Actor Academy Award for 1983's Tender Mercies, and now here comes Bridges, the odds-on favorite to finally win his own Oscar for playing the same type of role essayed by Duvall -- that of a rumpled, boozing, country & western star who enters into a relationship with a sympathetic woman at least two decades his junior. Bridges' grizzled character goes by the name Bad Blake, and that first name describes less the man who bears it -- he's fundamentally decent although, like most drunks, irresponsible and exhausting -- than the circumstances of his present lot in life. Washed up, perpetually inebriated, and playing honky-tonk dives while his protégée, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), fills up massive arenas, Blake stays in the fight even though the odds are against him. But suddenly, unexpected developments on the personal and professional fronts hold real promise. Sweet turns up and, clearly fond of his former mentor, offers him an opening slot on his tour and the opportunity to write new songs for him. And Blake, a multiple divorce' and unrepentant womanizer, finds a chance at a lasting relationship when he meets and falls for reporter and single mom Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Will Blake finally encounter true happiness, or will he find some way to screw everything up? Adapting Thomas Cobbs' novel, writer-director Scott Cooper throws enough curve balls into the expected plotting to keep the narrative from completely dissolving into formula. This is Bridges' show from start to finish, and he seems to be taking particular glee in letting it all hang out (sometimes literally, as a generous gut is frequently glimpsed bursting through an open shirt). Jeff Bridges is a great actor and Bad Blake a great character, and that's more than enough to make this otherwise unexceptional picture sing. ***
BROOKLYN'S FINEST Brooklyn's Finest certainly isn't Hollywood's finest. This tired police actioner admittedly picks up during its second half, but by then, patrons may be too deep in slumber to be woken even by the constant gunplay, shouted profanity or blaring coincidences that clang against each other with Crash-like precision. Speaking of Crash, that film's Don Cheadle shows up for ensemble duty here as well, playing one of three NYC police officers whose lives will intersect at various points during this pedestrian picture's running time. He plays Tango, an undercover cop who isn't sure if he can betray the powerful crime lord (Wesley Snipes) who trusts him like a brother. Meanwhile, Sal (Ethan Hawke) is tired of trying to support his large family on his measly salary, so he figures there's no harm in pocketing the cash found in the drug dens he helps bust. Finally, there's Eddie (one-note Richard Gere), a surly loner who has only one week to go before his retirement. Antoine Fuqua previously directed Training Day (for which Denzel Washington won his second Oscar), but here he's tackling a script with training wheels, as Michael C. Martin (making his feature-film writing debut) can't escape from the ghosts of cop flicks past. The only modest surprises occur at the very end -- not everyone gets the fate that might be expected -- but at that point, most viewers will be ready to walk a different beat altogether. **
GREEN ZONE The popular notion that goldfish only have a memory span of roughly three seconds has long been denounced by many as a myth, but that length of time sounds about right for the significant portion of the American population that hides under the bed fretting over fictional "death panels" while conveniently forgetting the Middle Eastern bloodbath that clearly branded George W. Bush and cronies as war criminals, a scarlet letter that will remain firmly in place until End of Days. To these folks, I present Green Zone, which comes across like a Young Readers version of the superb Iraq war documentary No End In Sight. Unfortunately, these folks are unlikely to expose themselves to anything that doesn't get the Glenn Beck Seal of Approval, meaning that we're left with yet another product that will only preach to the choir. But there's nothing here that will surprise anyone who's been paying the least bit of attention. Set in 2003, this stars Matt Damon as conscientious Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, who eventually realizes that there are no WMDs in Iraq -- that the whole war is based on a lie -- and does his best to expose the truth. Damon's intensity and Brian Helgeland's incident-packed script compensate for Paul Greengrass' panicky direction -- the action-packed final half-hour is especially messy, with no clarity of character or situation -- but the whole enterprise is rather simplistic in its moralizing. Green Zone basically plays like Iraq War for Dummies -- not that such a manual isn't needed, mind you. **
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