It’s a sharply honed, darkly funny, ultra-violent and wildly entertaining late 1960s period piece about the making of future made man Tony Soprano, the early criminal escapades of many key characters from the HBO series — and the blood oaths and ruthless betrayals that would set the checkered table for virtually everything that would happen to the Sopranos, their extended family and their associates some three decades later.

The Guilty wants to make a statement about a man who’s trying to save himself through saving others, but the message is delivered with all the subtlety of a frantic 911 call.

The adaptation is a curiously strange effort, as director Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) films the story like an indie drama, with straightforward, realistic, dialogue-driven scenes — and then every 10 minutes or so, a character breaks into song, and it seems much more contrived and jolting than something like La La Land.

So much talent — and everyone goes down with the ship in one of the worst movies of 2021.

It’s more exhausting than entertaining, and the multiple conclusions to the interconnecting storylines are more on the level of the dud that was “Rocky V” than the thrills of “Rocky III.”

Intrusion is a derivative, manipulative, convoluted and dopey story that dishes up one scary movie cliché after another before careening out of control with a late plot development so insanely implausible, so far out of left field, it’s as if someone accidentally deleted 20 pages of the script during production and nobody noticed.

Via the steady direction by Theodore Bogosian and the golden-throat narration from the one and only Bill Kurtis, we learn the full and amazing story of the joint one newspaper wag dubbed a “supernova in the local and national nightlife firmament.”

Alas, the sweet-natured and occasionally moving but surprisingly stiff and slight Cry Macho is most likely destined to be remembered as one of Eastwood’s lesser works.

An “Escape From New York”-meets-“Mad Max” ripoff that desperately wants to be a bonkers, midnight drive-in cult classic but doesn’t have the camp value or the memorably off-the-wall storyline to make the cut.

Perhaps this story would be better told in a limited non-fiction series as well, as Queenpins relies too much on scatological humor, farcical sequences and a not entirely convincing message that these women were feminist, Robin Hood heroes.

So, yes: “Kate” is “John Wick” meets “Die Hard” meets “Collateral” meets “Kill Bill all the Volumes” and we’ve seen it all before and you’re not going to get much in the way of original plot, but what you WILL get is a grindhouse of a good time with some bleak and wickedly sharp humor, screen-popping visuals and some pretty great fight choreography.

With spectacularly haunting original songs by Robert Levon Been of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club accompanying the journey, Schrader expertly captures the equal parts exciting and depressing worlds of casinos, where the slots are always jangling and the bar is always open.

By the time we reach the insanely dubious final twist of The Voyeurs, we’d rather just look the other way.

In less skilled hands, this could have come across as cynical and manipulative material, but Pollono is such a skilled wordsmith and the cast is so universally excellent, Small Engine Repair becomes a viewing experience you won’t easily shake off, not today and not for a long time.

Worth falls just short of having enough strength in the screenplay to warrant a recommendation.

The screenplay is dense with crackling dialogue, and the performances are uniformly excellent, with Shea Whigham leading the way in a badass anti-hero performance.

The popular singer-songwriter Camila Cabello makes her acting debut as the titular character, and she’s a revelation, as the camera loves her and she displays not only the expected vocal chops but a real knack for comedy, as this version of Cinderella is particularly charming when she’s floundering about and getting into embarrassing situations of her own making.

Shang-Chi gets a little bogged down in the grand finale, which features an overlong and typical MCU battle featuring all manner of otherworldly creatures and bombastic special effects — but the journey to that final destination is fantastic.

With much of the dialogue based on the actual conversations between killer and profiler, and Wood and Kirby turning in stellar work, No Man of God feels memorably, sometimes chillingly, real.

This movie is pure cotton candy — sweet and brightly colored and a bit of a guilty pleasure, but it’s not intended to be something you can sink your teeth into, and five minutes after consuming it, it’s like it never happened.

You might well be tired of pandemic-inspired movies and series and I’m leaning in that direction myself, but I’m still recommending the blistering and razor-sharp two-hander Together largely on the strength of the searing and unfiltered and stunningly good performances by Sharon Horgan and James McAvoy.

From the opening moments of Nia DaCosta’s gory yet strikingly beautiful and socially relevant “Candyman,” it’s clear we’re in for an especially haunting and just plain entertaining thrill ride.

We’re not buying what the script is selling, not for a hot second.

The Protégé isn’t trying to be anything more than slick, escapist action fare, but when you have the star power of the lead trio, a terrific supporting cast and what appears to be a sizable enough budget, it’s not too much to ask for a little something in the way of a cohesive script. Instead, we get two variations on the same twist, and an ending that’s both murky and irritating. Maggie Q and company deserve better.

It’s The Maltese Falcon meets Inception somewhere in the Vanilla Sky on the way to Chinatown in the inventive and ambitious but wildly convoluted and ultimately disappointing sci-fi noir Reminiscence, which careens this way and that, and this way and that, before running off the rails.

In Flag Day, Sean Penn directs himself for the first time and has cast Dylan Penn, his daughter with Robin Wright, as the lead — and the two are absolutely mesmerizing together, beautifully capturing the enormously complicated dynamic between a con man of a father who rolls out of bed with a fresh set of lies ready to go every morning, and an emotionally broken and bruised daughter who knows her dad is a walking bundle of disappointment but wants to believe that this time — this one time — he really has changed.

This is every bit the international thriller, from the exotic locations to the global political elements to the cast. If only we could get involved in Beckett’s story and truly care about his fate.

As you might expect, this is not exactly a hard-hitting expose (I’m not sure what that would even be), but it’s a most welcome change of gear from all the documentaries out there tackling deadly serious subjects. Sometimes we just need to cleanse the palate.