Movie reviews: ‘Alamar,’ ‘Down Terrace,’ ‘Gerrymandering,’ ‘Jim,’ ‘Legacy’

Pedro González-Rubio’s shimmeringly beautiful “Alamar” tells of a young Mexican father, Jorge Machado, taking his 5-year-old son Natan on a two-week vacation at Banco Chinchorro, a coral reef in the Mexican Caribbean, so the boy can experience living close to nature before he returns to Rome, where he lives with his Italian mother, Roberta Palombini.

González-Rubio is ambiguous in regard to the line between documentary and fiction, but he creates the feeling that, in essence, the parents and their son are playing themselves. It seems that Jorge, who loves living close to the land, became as miserable in Rome as Roberta did trying to live in rural Mexico.

Jorge is immediately enchanted with Chinchorro, where father and son go deep-sea diving and fishing. The water, which ranges from turquoise to ultra-marine in its hues, could not be clearer or more enticing. They stay with the silver-haired, grandfatherly Matraca, and “Alamar” (“To the Sea”) becomes a lovely idyll in a setting of endless natural splendor. Father and son bond in the pursuit of a simple life in which Jorge is a playful, affectionate father and Natan a most responsive son.

However, if one happens to be as urban-minded as Roberta is, one would have to admit that the life of a fisherman might become boring fairly quickly. It is to González-Rubio’s credit that he can celebrate nature so joyously, yet suggest neither the preferred lifestyle of either parent is superior to the other.

—Kevin Thomas

“Alamar.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes. In Spanish and some Italian, with English subtitles. Playing at Laemmle’s Music Hall, Beverly Hills.

It’s easy to see why feature-debuting writer-director Ben Wheatley’s darkly funny but unexpectedly jolting “Down Terrace” has been described as “ ‘The Sopranos’ as if imagined by Mike Leigh or Ken Loach,” but the film is so distinctive and idiosyncratic it still feels unique.

It is set largely in a row house in Brighton’s Down Terrace neighborhood, well away from the seaside resort’s famous landmarks, that is home to Bill (Robert Hill, whose home it actually is), his wife, Maggie (Julia Deakin), and their son Karl (Robin Hill, who co-wrote the script). They and several cohorts have long been involved in an unnamed criminal enterprise. What’s important to Wheatley, who honed his craft in commercials and in TV, is to create a rich, unpredictable evocation of family life with its ebbs and flows, rage and tenderness. (It undeniably helps that Robert and Robin Hill are real-life father and son.)

In a stellar moment, Bill delivers a long monologue on his hippie idealism and youthful idolatry of Timothy Leary that evaporated when he realized so many of the acid guru’s acolytes were getting rich in the drug trade while he remained poor. This is no typical family of British working-class films. They are articulate, even intellectual. The parents have strong, dominating personalities, and Karl, while outspoken, pretty much does what he is told — until his long-estranged girlfriend Valda (Kerry Peacock) turns up heavily pregnant and declares that Karl is the father. Her appearance sparks in Karl a longing for marriage, fatherhood and independence.

Wheatley’s style is elliptical in the utmost, stripped of all conventional expository material, which allows him to concentrate wholly on allowing his characters to emerge vividly as individuals, with all their emotional complexities and contradictions. “Down Terrace” is long on talk but generates its own internal rhythms and pace that makes it feel bracing and vibrantly alive.

—Kevin Thomas

“Down Terrace.” MPAA rating: R for violence, pervasive language and some drug use. Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes. Playing at the Sunset 5, West Hollywood.

Writer-director Jeff Reichert gives an arcane political practice a wonky, one-sided close-up in his documentary “Gerrymandering,” which refers to the calculated form of congressional redistricting by elected representatives that follows each decade’s Census. It’s an important if unsexy topic that Reichert attempts to energize with some OK animation and a raft of comments from politicians, legal experts and advocacy group leaders. (One pundit here, clearly reflecting the filmmaker’s stance, deems gerrymandering, a term coined in 1812 after the redistricting actions of then-Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry, “the most effective form of manipulating elections short of outright fraud.”)

The movie illustrates how the process skews and literally reshapes elections, often favoring incumbents and majority party candidates, by examining recent redistricting examples in such states as Florida, Texas, Louisiana and New York. But it’s California that takes center stage as Reichert revisits the state’s 2008 Proposition 11 fight to establish a bipartisan commission to draw district boundaries.

Despite much archival and news footage, along with ample face time from that initiative’s most ebullient supporter, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the contest lacks the kind of inherent drama and tension that could have helped quicken the movie’s measured pulse.

On the other hand, maybe the whole topic is just too esoteric to warrant feature-length dissection without a craftier firebrand like Michael Moore at the helm.

—Gary Goldstein

“Gerrymandering.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes. Playing at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre, West Los Angeles.

The post-apocalyptic science-fiction head-scratcher “Jim,” which seems to be about bioethics, unemployment, personal legacy, the healthcare system and — what? Humans without humanity? — provokes one dominant reaction: “Whaaa?”

Told in intercut fragments from two eras, the film begins in a burned-out future principally populated by clones (“drones” might be more accurate, as they don’t think independently) whose labor powers the city of “natural,” genetically enhanced human survivors — only two of whom we see. One clone does think, making her the rope in a poorly justified tug-of-war between those two good-and-evil figures. Then there’s the eventually linked story of Jim (Dan Illian), an everyman in a time like ours. In non-chronological episodes, he faces just about all of life’s joys and trials, including contemplating shooting up a playground.

The dark specter of gene modification hangs over all of this, although it’s unclear why it’s a bogeyman. First-time writer-director-everything-else Jeremy Morris-Burke tries to take on big issues, but what he’s actually saying is a mystery. The dialogue and some performances are often wooden, with only occasional flashes of convincing emotion — although Vanessa Morris-Burke is warmly effective as Jim’s wife and Amy Heidt shines in a brief appearance.

Morris-Burke does deserve applause for what he has accomplished technically on a shoestring budget. His location scout is a hero. But the over-complicated, under-emotional “Jim’s” reach ultimately exceeds its grasp.

—Michael Ordoña

“Jim.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes. Playing at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, West Hollywood.

Less than five minutes into “Legacy,” a nervous commando says, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” … and here come the conspiracies, betrayals and torture. But, aspiring for psychological drama rather than action movie, the film takes itself far too seriously.

Idris Elba plays Malcolm Gray, who, if we can believe anything we’re told, is a black-ops assassin who does really, really terrible things. A mission goes wrong (betrayal!), he’s captured and tortured (told you). Later, shattered Gray is holed up in a hotel room, drinking gin and muttering to himself — never a jolly time, a trained killer in that state. Meanwhile, his brother, a senator who made his name preventing a major terrorist attack and also happened to authorize Gray’s wet work, prepares to run for president (conspiracy!).

“Legacy” is exceedingly sullen, creeping of pace, cloaked in shadows and plays peekaboo so relentlessly with what’s real and what’s in Gray’s head that viewers get left behind. As to its dialogue, consider: “Be careful with memories — a conscience will drop you faster than any bullet.”

There’s little understanding of human behavior here — the woman who loves Gray marries his brother when he’s been MIA for a few months; friends from his unit playfully attack him in his sleep, brandishing a knife in the torture victim’s face.

But all this falls under the umbrella of writer-director Thomas Ikimi’s game of What Is Real? Ikimi plays so fast and loose with reality that the dramatic stakes are lost among the hallucinations and anagrammed names. In the end, “Legacy” leaves nothing to hold on to.

—Michael Ordoña

“Legacy.” MPAA rating: R for strong brutal violence including some torture and pervasive language. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. Playing at the AMC Rolling Hills Estates.

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