Roger Moore

Whoever is primarily to blame, Son-in-Law starts out confused and stays confusing almost to the can’t-come-soon-enough closing credits.

It’s a grand looking production and a well-cast, well-acted and high-minded film. But Hytner and Bennett have conjured up a Big Show and an Important Statement, and so cluttered the narrative that they lose track of which statements they’re serious about making.

Arnett’s funny. No doubt about it. But he needs material to work with, and “Is This Thing On?” doesn’t deliver it.

It may be straight-up melodrama, from its lone, corny, over-explaining flashback to the cliched drunk tank our hero finds himself in to the grim hysteria of an ambulance ride. Desplechin’s film still strikes enough of the right notes to be entertaining.

They all — including Irons and Johannes, who lost his band and record deal after Slovak finally made his Chili Peppers “side band” commitment permanent — come off as reflective, sober, compassionate and grateful to each other for the life-changing experience their stardom or near stardom gave them.

It doesn’t all work, and some key elements are lost any time you mess with a classic plot. But if there’s an agenda in this “Farm,” it’s that good but misguided people (animals here) have to admit they’ve been had before their deeply-flawed, criminally cruel idols can be brought down. And calling out their stupidity is no way to lead, either.

It doesn’t really work.

Hellfire is exactly the sort of movie you’d expect Dolph Lundgren to wind down his career with. Keitel and Lang deserve better.

Time and again, the screenwriters and director give us a hint that “reality” doesn’t figure into this school or its Shakespeare-quoting/street bike wheely-popping coeds, and that maybe they don’t know how steroids work and how long it takes for “roid rage” to kick in either.

Just when you think you’ve got a performer all figured out, they go out and surprise you with a sweet and sentimental story of love and loss and dogs.

The first act is mythic and mysterious enough to lure us in, before the cannibals show up, the implausibilities pile up and the holes in the plot turn out to be a lot bigger than anything a katana sword would make.

A Father’s Miracle is so corny and klunky that one wonders if any of the other versions have been the least bit believable. We know they were crowd pleasers, and this one might have an audience, too. One wonders just who might buy into something so tooth-achingly sweet yet darkly dopey at the same time.

The screenplay almost lets everybody down, and referencing Chekhov (“Three Sisters”) doesn’t amount to anything if you don’t inject more depth into the characters and situations as a consequence. But the settings are gorgeous. Some situations bear fruit and others deliver laughs.

Runt is a sweet and ever so slight Aussie farm country comedy in the “Babe” tradition.

As Accused wallows deeper and deeper into melodrama, with one-note performances almost making every character a caricature, the inescapable conclusion one leaps to is that this film’s late-to-the-game subject matter and quaint treatment of it was made by some seriously unsophisticated filmmakers.

Refuge is a frankly stupid and formulaic “whodunit” wrapped in torture, retribution and guilt from all the dirty secrets men keep.

Director and co-writer Gabriel Mascaro (“Neon Bull,” “August Winds”) keeps his film anchored in harsh realities of a present doomed to drift into an even uglier future, even as he traffics in allegories and parables and tropes of mythic trips of self-discovery dating back to Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

A fun and furious phenomenon of the ’90s New York punk scene is given its due and another faint glimpse of the spotlight in Pretty Ugly: The Story of the Lunachicks, a wry, wizened and not remotely bitter doc about a band that never quite made it, but should have.

There’s witty banter about bank robberies in a “just tap your card” society — “Nobody uses cash any more.” And director Ben Wheatley (Free Fire and Sightseers were his) knows his way around a shoot-out, punch-out, snowplow chase or what have you. One film fan’s “predictable” can be a lot of filmgoers’ comfort food.

Sossai hasn’t made a movie that sentimentalizes alcoholism, but he has managed to suggest the mistakes, busted dreams, dashed hopes and futility of getting ahead or getting by in a barely-functioning democracy and permanently-rigged “market economy” that makes the bottle such an appealing escape.

Bacon plays a little and sings a little, Sedgwick handles jokes and pathos and in the scenes that count and turns “professional” in a heartbeat. And each gets across a shared empathy and humanity that bridges any gap in class and life experience.

Coogan, Cattaneo and screenwriter Jeff Pope have adapted a touching tale that is the Argentine penguin embodiment of “Keep Calm and Carry On,” for those who’re willing to see it.

Farrelly’s movie, like his comic shock-shtick, gets old in a hurry.

Soaking up the one-liners and Hill’s antic but comically winded patter makes one wonder if even recasting the lead would have helped.

Films fail for a lot of reasons, almost all of them behind the camera — weak script, lackluster direction, poor pacing, etc. But every now and then, miscasting or an out-of-her-depth lead performance also takes some of the blame. Bailey isn’t up to carrying this off.

I thought I was settling in for something fresh, but the working class poverty is well-furnished and familial and entirely too tidy compared to “Rocky,” the underdog reaching for revenge and/or glory underwhelms and the darkest moments don’t move or touch the viewer in any meaningful way.

There’s no edge to any of this. The stakes are low and treated as no big deal.

An imposing and impressive lead performance somewhat atones for an awkwardly structured script and a charisma-starved supporting cast in A Great Awakening.