Capsule reviews of films playing the week of May 27 

Page 3 of 6

NEXT DAY AIR From its slapdash opening that rips off City of God to its guns-blazing finale that feels like a steal from the Quentin Tarantino playbook, Next Day Air doesn't possess one moment or idea that can be called its own. Here's a project so ill-conceived that it finds room in its cast for the talented Mos Def but then bungles that gift by giving him the smallest role among the principal cast members. Of course, you wouldn't know this from the posters and previews, most of which place the actor front and center. The marketing gurus behind this picture are brilliant; maybe they should have been assigned to make this film instead of director Benny Boom and writer Blair Cobbs. At least Mos Def is good while he lasts, appearing in only two scenes as a perpetually stoned delivery man for a UPS-style company. Much more of the screen time is given to Donald Faison, also playing a perpetually stoned delivery man – and the one who mistakenly delivers a box of cocaine bricks to a pair of bumbling bank robbers (Mike Epps and Wood Harris) instead of the proper recipient, a Latino middle man named Jesus (Cisco Reyes). When the crime lord (Emilio Rivera) who sent the package learns of this screw-up, he decides to handle the matter in person. Despite the fact that they're only required to play "types" rather than characters, all of the actors acquit themselves nicely, including Yasmin Deliz in a feisty film debut as Jesus' girlfriend. But even a gung-ho cast can't work miracles when the scripter can't think of anything witty for them to say and the director is incapable of building any sort of momentum from scene to scene. Just mark this one Return To Sender. *1/2

PARIS 36 Co-written and directed by Christophe Barratier (The Chorus), Paris 36 centers on the coping mechanisms of a French theatrical troupe as they try to pry loose the fingers of the fascists who threaten their very lifeline. And how do they cope? By embracing that age-old adage, the one stipulating that the show must go on. Before the right-wing Galpiat (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) gets around to co-hosting Nazi rallies, he's busy closing down the neighborhood theater, the Chansonia. But Pigoil (Gerard Jugnot), the venue's dedicated stage manager, gathers a group of loyal comrades – a labor organizer (Clovis Cornillac), a lovely ingenue (Nora Arnezeder) and a spectacularly unfunny comedian (Kad Merad) – and together they work to bring the establishment back to its former glory. Barratier crams in so many subplots and ironic twists of fate that the result is often like watching hot water flowing over the sides of a pot boiling furiously on the stovetop – the story strand involving Pigoil's abandonment by an unfaithful wife seems extraneous, and the identity of the ingenue's father is simply absurd. But for all its shortcomings, Paris 36 is breezy entertainment, full of memorable characters, deft at doling out drama and comedy in equal measure, and sparked by original musical compositions drafted in the style of the day. It's clearly old-fashioned entertainment, and while the blue-hairs will dig it, I suspect many of us with brown, blonde, black or red hair will embrace it as well. ***

17 AGAIN The first half-hour of 17 Again is simply atrocious, lazily cobbling together pieces from Back to the Future, Big and all those forgettable '80s body-switch comedies in an effort to jump-start its tale. Zac Efron plays Mike O'Donnell, a high school basketball star who, two decades later, has transformed into a depressed doormat whose teenage children Maggie and Alex (Michelle Trachtenberg and Sterling Knight) hate him and whose wife Scarlett (Leslie Mann) is divorcing him. (The middle-aged Mike/Zac is played by a suitably pudgy Matthew Perry.) In the blink of an eye, Mike is suddenly 17 again, retaining his adult mindset but trolling the halls of his school looking like one of the gang. Armed with this opportunity, Mike hopes to set things right, first by helping out his two children (Maggie's romantically involved with the school bully while Alex is the perpetual target of said thug) and then by convincing Scarlett to give him (or, rather, his older self) a second chance. Efron is appealing within the confines of his limited range, but like the film itself, a severe case of blandness puts a lid on any breakout potential. Mann (aka Mrs. Judd Apatow) provides the piece with its heart, and she proves once again that she deserves a shot or two at more substantial roles. Beyond her, the film is completely disposable, with not enough timeline complications in its scripting and too much footage devoted to the antics of Mike's best friend Ned (Thomas Lennon), a fanboy who never grew up. The bed shaped like a Star Wars landspeeder is a cute visual gag, but by the time Ned started speaking Tolkien's Elvish language, I was ready to check back in with reality. **