This ‘Captain’ veers off course

Amin Matalqa’s teary drama, “Captain Abu Raed,” takes its obvious cues from the neorealism of Satyajit Ray and Jean Renoir, but Matalqa doesn’t know how to balance melodrama with quiet moments the way the masters did. The movie’s strongest point is Nadim Sawalha’s performance as Abu Raed, a Jordanian janitor who fishes a hat out of an airport trash can and subsequently is mistaken for a pilot by the neighborhood children.

Although he tries to correct them, he succumbs to their need to hear stories of the world outside their slum, concocting a series of globe-trotting adventures for their eager absorption. The only one immune to his charms is Murad (Hussein Al-Sous), who spitefully tries to convince Abu Raed’s audience of his fraudulence.

While the movie’s first half is pleasant if a tad syrupy, the discovery that Murad’s father is a violent alcoholic who regularly beats his wife and children turns it heavy-handedly toward tragedy, a screeching course correction from which the film never recovers.

-- Sam Adams

“Captain Abu Raed.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. In Arabic with English subtitles. Exclusively at Laemmle’s Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills (310) 274-6869.

--

Muddled plot, Mexican setting

As if writer-director Ryan Harper’s leaden thriller “Circulation” wasn’t hazy enough, if you miss the film’s first 30 seconds or don’t instantly process its opening line of dialogue, you’ll likely miss the entire point of the movie.

The picture is essentially a two-hander between Ana (Yvonne DeLaRosa), a Mexican waitress driving to a booty call at a Baja beach hotel, and Gene, a middle-aged trucker with the personality of a tree stump (with a wooden performance by Sherman Koltz to match).

Gene picks up a hitchhiking Ana after her car dies and she’s kidnapped and almost killed by her abusive ex-husband. On the road, they experience a string of nightmarish incidents that baffle instead of thrill. Cheesy visual effects involving, apparently, spiders and caterpillars round out the ineptitude.

As for the title, you’re on your own.

-- Gary Goldstein

“Circulation.” MPAA Rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes. In English and Spanish with English subtitles. Exclusively at Laemmle’s Grande 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St., (213) 617-0268.

--

A friend’s murder, his son’s birth

When a film is so emotionally congested with every stage of grief as “Dear Zachary” understandably is, the effect can be unintentionally, heartbreakingly distancing. There is outrage, love and confusion as personal as anything you’ll see in a documentary, but be warned the film has a scorched-earth policy when it comes to stirring up your feelings.

Using scores of interviews, Kurt Kuenne set out to memorialize his friend Dr. Andrew Bagby, who was murdered in November 2001 and whose pregnant ex-girlfriend became the prime suspect in the crime. She fled to Canada, and as the extradition process dragged on, Bagby’s parents, David and Kathleen, moved to Canada to fight for custody of their grandson, Zachary.

Events transpire that make an already terrible situation even more unimaginably horrific, which leads Kuenne -- who does nothing halfway here -- to stoke activist fires for the rights of victims’ families.

“Dear Zachary” is an undeniably shattering story, if forgivably shaky in its impassioned, therapeutic unfolding.

-- Robert Abele

“Dear Zachary.” MPAA: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes. Exclusively at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, 8000 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-3500.

--

A talent contest, not much insight

An uninspired cultural comedy with a few sharp lines to recommend it, Manish Acharya’s back-stabbing backstage farce, “Loins of Punjab Presents,” is set behind the scenes at “Desi Idol,” a singing contest for South Asian immigrants sponsored by a meat-company magnate (Jameel Khan) with a wandering eye and a fondness for the Gipsy Kings.

Among the contestants crammed into a New Jersey hotel are a comely ingenue (Ishitta Sharma), an imperious socialite (Shabana Azmi) and a rapper (Ajay Naidu) who calls himself the Turbanotorious B.D.G. (“I’ll cut film deals with Shekhar Kapur / My rhymes are like Rabindranath Tagore”).

Acharya uses the form to raise issues about the South Asia diaspora and cultural cross-breeding: The contest’s roster also includes an aspiring Bollywood actress (Seema Rahmani) who doesn’t speak Hindi and a white American (Michael Raimondi), whose devotion to Indian culture is greeted with withering looks. But Acharya doesn’t do anything with the issues after he’s raised them, substituting observation for insight.

-- Sam Adams

“Loins of Punjab Presents.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes. At the Regent Showcase, 614 N. La Brea Ave., (323) 934-1770; ImaginAsian Center, 251 S. Main St., (213) 617-1033.

--

‘P.J.’ should be on life support

“P.J.” is an unconvincing drama saddled with dime-store psychology and a clunky inspirational message. Under the misguidance of director Russ Emanuel, this hollow effort often plays like a string of scenes from a bad acting class instead of a releasable feature. Even the more experienced actors here can’t overcome the hackneyed dialogue and contrived emotional beats in Mark McQuown and Emilio Iasiello’s script (based on McQuown’s play).

John Heard stars as a psychiatrist at a Brooklyn hospital treating a mysterious new patient known as P.J. (erratically played by producer Howard Nash), who’s stricken by memory loss and a split personality. The shrink, haunted by his young daughter’s accidental death, explores his own dysfunction while solving P.J.’s trauma.

There are parallels, romantic and otherwise, between the doc’s and P.J.’s situations, but they feel hopelessly contrived. A subplot involving a gambling-addicted hospital assistant (Vincent Pastore) who plies a quasi-psychic P.J. for racehorse picks, could have been excised without loss.

While the movie basically wraps at the 70-minute mark, Emanuel tacks on a 15-minute epilogue, the main purpose of which seems to give the film a respectable running time. It only prolongs the tedium.

-- Gary Goldstein

“P.J.” MPAA Rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes. Exclusively at Laemmle’s Grande 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St., (213) 617-0268.

--

A look at ‘World’ of ‘50s apartheid

Shamim Sarif’s “The World Unseen,” based on her novel, depicts the growing attraction between two Indian women in rural South Africa in the early 1950s. The film makes clear from its first scene what a treacherous minefield apartheid was for Indians and those of mixed ancestry as well as blacks.

Sheetal Sheth’s Amina is the free-spirited proprietor of a small-town cafe. A mutual attraction develops between her and Lisa Ray’s Miriam, a demure housewife married to an ambitious, philandering male chauvinist (Parvin Dabas). He is greatly chagrined that his twin sister is married to a Caucasian -- the couple is in denial over their dangerous predicament under apartheid.

Drawing upon her own heritage as a descendant of South Africa’s large Indian community, Sarif brings more than a dozen interconnected characters to life. She is too wise to suggest that these people can fully transcend the oppressive realities of apartheid -- and it’s impossible to imagine how Miriam and Amina could have any sexual relationship that wasn’t secret.

By the end of the film, Miriam has a far more enlightened view of herself and her life, and Sarif is a deft enough storyteller to give “The World Unseen” an open ending that seems just right.

-- Kevin Thomas

“The World Unseen.” MPAA rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexual activity, violence. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes. Exclusively at the Laemmle’s Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869.