This week\u2019s low-profile VOD releases feature Swedish pop stars, British mobsters, Japanese military guards, and an awkward French Jewish guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sounds of Summer<\/em><\/strong> (Viaplay September 18):<\/strong> Proof that formulaic musician biopics transcend borders, this film about the early days of Swedish pop group Gyllene Tider is boring and predictable even for international audiences who\u2019ve never heard of its subject. There\u2019s minimal conflict involved in the rise of the band from the small city of Halmstad, where singer-songwriter Per Gessle (Waldemar Wahlbeck) recruits a group of local musicians to realize his dream of rock stardom. Per has the requisite disapproving working-class dad, and the band faces mild skepticism before scoring a record deal and its first national hit in 1980. Wahlbeck maintains a blank smirk for most of the movie, and the other band members barely register as characters. The story climaxes with a concert tragedy that left three fans dead, but even that horrific event is merely a blip on the journey to further success. Gessle (known in the U.S. for his later work with Roxette) wrote some catchy tunes, which make a much greater impression than anything in this uninspired movie. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A Nice Jewish Boy<\/em><\/strong> (VOD and Film Movement+ September 19):<\/strong> The literal translation of this French movie\u2019s title is The Last of the Jews<\/em>, which better captures its melancholy tone and downbeat plotting. Writer-director No\u00e9 Debr\u00e9 veers from whimsy to bitterness in the story of 26-year-old man-child Bellisha (Michael Zindel), who still lives with his ailing mother Giselle (Agn\u00e8s Jaoui) in the apartment where he grew up, and has never held a job or gotten a degree. Bellisha is an irritating compulsive liar, but he somehow charms nearly everyone in his life, from his indulgent mother to the married neighbor he\u2019s sleeping with. The Jewish community in Bellisha\u2019s impoverished neighborhood has disappeared, and he makes various flailing efforts to find a new home for himself and his mother, but the movie is as unfocused as its protagonist, with half-formed observations about race, religion, and class alongside goofy scenes of Bellisha attempting to rap. There are some nice moments in the mother-son relationship, although Bellisha is so oblivious that even those tender interactions largely ring hollow. Grade: C+<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Prisoner of War<\/em><\/strong> (VOD and select theaters September 19):<\/strong> Although it finds a way to have action star Scott Adkins drop-kick a Japanese soldier into a landmine, this World War II-set thriller is mostly a poor fit for Adkins\u2019 skills, and it loses momentum whenever he\u2019s not in the midst of a fight. He\u2019s not particularly convincing as RAF pilot James Wright, who\u2019s captured by the Japanese after his plane goes down over the Philippines. Sent to a POW camp run by the ruthless Lt. Col. Ito (Peter Shinkoda), Wright schemes to help his fellow prisoners escape, while periodically being forced into gladiator-style matches against Ito\u2019s soldiers. The repetitive plot stretches to nearly two hours, and the scenes of planning and bonding among the prisoners are dramatically inert. Actor-turned-director Louis Mandylor (Adkins\u2019 co-star in the Debt Collector<\/em><\/a> movies) aims for a B-movie action version of something like David Lean\u2019s The Bridge on the River Kwai<\/em>, but he\u2019s no Lean, and Adkins is no Alec Guinness. The bursts of kinetic fight choreography only carry things so far. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n