Hard Target (1993)

Jean Claude Van Damme and John Woo went Hollywood pro in “Hard Target,” a grisly, loud, and corny 1990s action blast that takes on the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” with a GOP spin. You know the original: Men are hunted as sport by other men with guns. Here, the hunted are New Orleans poor and homeless, while the hunters are rich white CEO types with a kill dreams and a copy of “Atlas Shrugged” by the bedside. The poor are leeches on society right? Republican cheer! Sorry. Could not resist. The plot kicks off with a young woman (Yancy Butler) searching for her vet pop who turns up a corpse from such a hunt. With police useless, she hires a drifter –- that’s Van Damme –- to catch the killers. Luckily this guy has crazy martial arts skills to fight all wrongdoers who mean her harm. Woo’s style -- doves, fireworks, ballet jumps with guns -– is plentiful and spectacular. But the slo-mo shots of Van Damme tossing around his filthy swamp boy mullet as if he were in a trailer park shampoo commercial just cringes, and brings unintended laughs. Quibbles aside, “Target” is remains Van Damme’s sharpest American effort. B+

Elysium (2013)

After South African filmmaker Neil Blomkamp made instant classic “District 9,” he had to go big. So, it’s inevitable that his studio summer flick “Elysium” would disappoint. The hero here is Max (Matt Damon), an do-gooder ex-con in 2154 who suffers an accidental death-sentence radiation dose at work, where he builds the RoboCops that abuse the populace. Max won’t die quiet. He wants to get his ass to Elysium, a glistening, guarded spaceship hovering over Earth like a second moon. Ninety-nine percenters alert: Elysium is home only to the rich, and features medical machines that cure any injury or illness. Earth? It’s crowded, dying. Now oddly armored with an exoskeleton from “Aliens,” Max is out for Elyisum, but has to pass through a bounty hunter (Sharlto Copley of “9”) and a military honcho (Jodie Foster, dishing a whack accent). Bound to Hollywood cliché now, Blomkamp tosses in an angelic childhood sweetheart (Alice Braga) with an adorable Dickens preschooler with end-stage leukemia, who also needs curing. What will Max do? Blomkamp’s visuals thrill, but as the climax grinds too easy and “9” echoed too deeply, his leftist sci-fi throwdown feels a weak second effort. B

Detropia (2012)

No matter one’s politics, everyone knows the American economy started tanking in 2007 and crashed in 2008, and has yet to really recover. The documentary “Detropia” is about, of course, Detroit, and its past glory crushed by a collapsed auto industry hit hard by economic woes, international competition, and its own greedy execs who would rather pay foreigners pennies per day. Directors Heidi Ewing, a native of the city, and Rachel Grady, from the East Coast, talk to union reps, a retiree running a dying restaurant, and a video blogger among a few others helpless to save their homes. The city’s broke and every cure is bad and –- in the idea of creating massive farms -- lunatic. Ewing and Grady offer no answers or judgments, nor do they talk to big wigs or CEOs, but they do show some ironies -– including an opera house that plays to the rich, while the jobless suffer outside. One man sings in an abandoned train station that must have buzzed with a few hundred thousand people every day. It’s certain things will never be the same in Detroit or in America. Grady said she wanted subliminal. That’s cool. But it’s also fleeting. B+

Winter’s Bone (2010)

“Winter’s Bone” is as bleak as a film can get. It makes one long for the small joys found in such fare as “The Road.” Set amid the rural mountains of Missouri’s Ozarks, this is the tale of a 17-year-old girl desperately trying to crawl out of a hole of absolute poverty while dodging a constant threat of violence. It is a far-distant cousin to last year’s “Precious,” but without the lofty dreams. Don't let this opening be an interest killer. "Bone" is among the year's best films. It kicked butt at Sundance, and also should win some awards-time love.

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Ree Dolly, the teen who might as well be 35. Her meth-maker father is either dead or running from the law. Her mother is lost in a mental void, caused by stress or maybe bad drugs. There are no doctors to help. The Dolly family has two more children, six and 10. Ree is their substitute mother. The film follows Ree as she hunts her missing father’s whereabouts, going from one relative to another. In this forgotten landscape of America, everyone is related somehow by blood. But meth, cocaine and booze are thicker than blood. They count. Kin don't.

Ree is repeatedly told, “Don’t bother. Don’t look. Shut up.” She refuses. The first major threat comes from her uncle (John Hawkes), also a drug user/supplier. Ree is scared of this man, who could break her neck or set her on the path of a better life. There is no good life. Only shades of bad, and better than bad. (Hawkes of TV’s “Lost” is amazing in the role.) The men rule with absolute authority, to the point that women will visit violence upon one another to prevent their men’s rage from uncorking.

At one point a man tells Ree not to tell “stories” about him. She retorts: “I never talk about you men.” Ree knows her place, and that of all women, here. She is no fool. A clueless right-wing writer at “American Spectator” slammed the film as “feminist” and anti-man. Since when did a woman wanting to live and feed children become “feminist”? That doesn’t mean there is no commentary here. At the Dolly house, an American flag hangs forgotten and tattered. I think it’s meant to represent the American dream for such desperate people. This is not a red state/blue state issue. We have poor in both states, and in both political parties.

Few films capture how some people can crawl up or slide down the pole of humanity. Characters here move, grow and change. Director Debra Granik, who co-wrote the screenplay from a book, makes every detail real –cluttered houses, yards and emotions. She provides sinking-stomach suspense, with no tricky editing, music or gun play. A late-night car ride that climaxes in a cold river needs no such help. That a chainsaw is involved makes it all the more harrowing.

Lawrence gives a forceful but quiet performance. If a big name were in this film, much ink and 1s and 0s would be spilled over how Ms. X went grungy and starved to give the performance of a lifetime. Lawrence will never get such lofty accolades. Similar to Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious,” Lawrence is too unknown, real and convincing in her environment to let us see her “acting.” Her last line is a heart-breaker, but beautifully told.

“Bone” is no box office firecracker, but it’s a must-see for anyone interested in the most hidden parts of America and the people stuck there. A