Going Out Guide’s family movie reviews

PG-13

MAN ON A LEDGE. Teens may lose patience with this irritatingly contrived, oddly miscast crime thriller long before it’s over. A preoccupied mystery man books a room in a New York hotel, has a nice meal, then steps out onto the window ledge. He won’t say much to a police negotiator and demands a female negotiator who’s in disgrace. She and her colleagues learn that the man has a history with the NYPD, has escaped from prison and is determined to prove his innocence.

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THE BOTTOM LINE: The action features fights and shootouts but little intensity or gore. Characters drink and smoke and use mild profanity. One character wears revealing outfits and engages in mild sexual innuendo.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Teens who respond to strong drama and historic events will embrace this quirky film about the emotional fallout of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Oskar Schell (extraordinary newcomer Thomas Horn) is a brilliant, anxiety-plagued 11-year-old trying to absorb the fact that his dad, Thomas, died in the attacks. Oskar adored his father, and now, a year after 9/11, can’t open up to his grieving mother. He has found a key in his father’s closet in an envelope with the name “Black” on it and decides that finding what lock it fits is crucial to his peace of mind.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The movie explores how children and adults deal with grief. It has images both real and stylized of the burning World Trade Center towers and of falling bodies. While intense and upsetting, the images are not graphic. The script includes occasional crude language and midrange profanity.

THE IRON LADY. It’s unlikely that teens or even most college students, except perhaps history and poli-sci majors, will have much interest in this unusual, rather apolitical study of Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Many will squirm through its stately pace. Teens interested in the finer points of acting, however, can delight in Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep’s infinitely detailed embodiment of the grande dame. Told from the point of view of a widowed and ever more distracted Thatcher, the film will disappoint those who want more of a critique of her policies. Instead they get her history in fragmented flashbacks.

The bottom line: The film includes frightening reenactments of Irish Republican Army bombings, as well as occasionally violent anti-Thatcher demonstrations and strikes. There are archival shots of war violence and brief toplessness. A central theme is Thatcher’s slow descent into dementia. Some characters drink and smoke.

R

THE GREY. Based on a short story by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, who wrote the script with director Joe Carnahan, “The Grey” feels like a throwback to a Jack London adventure in which men test their mettle against whatever nature throws at them. Kids 15 and older with strong stomachs will find it mighty enthralling. Terrifically acted and handsomely made, “The Grey” is both a thriller and a dark night of the soul for a tough group of men, led by John Ottway, a sharpshooter who protects an oil-drilling crew in Alaska from wolves. Ottway has a Captain Ahab-like obsession with the beasts. The movie isn’t for kids younger than high school age, but it’s an unusually cool piece of work.