A single mom fights for her son's education

I can think of only one compelling reason to see Miss Virginia, a predictable advocacy movie that makes the case for supporting poor minority kids in private schools. That reason has nothing to do with the movie's political orientation. The reason: Uzo Aduba. Fans of Orange Is the New Black know Aduba as Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren, one of the most disturbed but unforgettable residents of the series' fictional Litchfield Penitentiary. Miss Virginia affords Aduba a chance to break from her portrayal of Suzanne. Here, she plays Virginia Ford, a single mother who helped lobby for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offered scholarships that enabled low-income students to attend private schools. We meet Virginia in 2003 when she's trying to keep her 15-year-old son James (Niles Fitch) on track. James is being bullied at a public school where no one appreciates his artistic talent. Virginia bravely enrolls her son in an expensive private school, knowing full well that she'll have difficulty paying the tuition. She then lands a job working for a congresswoman (Aunjanue Ellis) who Virginia believes appreciates her problems. Turns out that Virginia's hope in her boss has been misplaced. Eventually, Virginia asks another member of congress (Matthew Modine) to help. The screenplay presents Virginia with any number of obstacles as she battles to save her talented son from the lure of the streets. Director R.J. Daniel Hanna has made a by-the-numbers drama that aims for inspiration. Aduba's performance reflects bone-deep, undeniable conviction, but I wouldn't look to Miss Virginia for a definitive solution to the always-troubling problem of failing schools.

'Soldado' bathes in cynicism

Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro reunite in Sicario: Day of the Soldado

The first few minutes of Sicario: Day of the Soldado conflate Mexican border crossings with acts of Islamic terror in the US. The picture wasn't five minutes old before I found myself wondering whether Stephen Miller, considered the hardest of the Trump administration’s immigration hardliners, hadn’t served as a script consultant.

But this sequel to 2015's Sicario eventually broadens its outlook to encompass a kind of inclusive nihilism in which the US government will advance its ambitions by fomenting war, in which CIA agents fight battles in which there are no rules and in which violence, cynicism, and wavering loyalties upset any semblance of international order.

This teeming doomy pile of hopelessness should have made Soldado feel like a keen-eyed movie of the moment, yet this edition of Sicario feels oddly out of touch, a movie in which events seem to be taking place in a world divorced from all other possible realities.

From the start, Soldado accepts its brand of amoral realism without question, perhaps establishing itself as another movie that expects us to admire the way it pushes violent efficiency to harsh extremes.

This time, the story centers on the way a hard-core CIA operative (Josh Brolin) enlists the help of a professional assassin (Benicio del Toro) in trying to start a war among Mexican drug cartels, groups of ruthless mobsters that have recognized a new economic reality: People -- namely immigrants who wish to be smuggled across the border between the US and Mexico -- have become the new cocaine, an abundant source of profit.

Emily Blunt, who appeared in the first movie as a novice who picked her way through thickets of moral corruption, has been replaced by Catherine Keener, a more credible hardass but one who has been given much less to do than Blunt.

Brolin reprises his role as a CIA agent who, for the most part, operates without principles. If there’s a dirty job, Brolin’s character does it with matter-of-fact efficiency. As the movie’s assassin, del Toro manages to do what he does best, bring unexpected flavor to his line readings, sort of Christopher Walker without the impish humor. I’m not criticizing del Toro for this; for me, his quietly off-kilter performance was the best thing about the movie.

The plot contrives to have del Toro’s Alejandro escort a teenage girl (Isabela Moner) out of Mexico. The daughter of a major drug lord, Isabella's kidnapping is part of a complicated scheme to pit rival gangs against each other. It's part of an ill-defined effort to stop Islamic terrorists from joining immigrants as they cross the border.

You probably needn’t have seen the first movie to follow this one, which tries up its ante of dread with Hildur Guonadottir's monotonously ominous score, which — I imagine — is what fog horns would sound like if they were able to mourn.

I still have enough appreciation of B-movie pleasures to have enjoyed parts of Soldado, although it’s difficult to say which without spoilers.

Overall, though, Soldado takes us into dismal emotionally parched terrain where morals have been strip-mined, decency has been eroded and most values have been discarded. The movie follows characters who are accustomed to doing society’s dirty work for bureaucrats —- Matthew Modine portrays the US Secretary of Defense -- who are committed to covering their own asses no matter what their decisions may cost others.

Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, who wrote the first movie and followed with Hell or High Water and Wind River, hasn't imagined the same movie twice but doesn't do much to expand the second helping's thematic reach. And in taking the reins from director Denis Villeneuve, Italian director Stefano Sollima has made a movie that, like many of its characters, seems to lack conviction about the corrupted world into which it pumps a fair measure of bullets.

Those who find Soldado realistic may want to consider the near-miraculous recovery made one of its characters after ... I'll say no more. Check it out for yourself and tell me if you bought it.

'Family Weekend' feels so much longer

In the preliminary telecasts leading up to last month's Oscar broadcast, host Kristin Chenoweth was so bubbly, I thought her fizz might spill out from the TV, adding to the many issues created by our recently departed and much loved dog who -- in his old age -- hadn't always been kind to the carpeting in the TV room.

Considering Chenoweth's unregulated supply of pre-Oscar effervescence, I was delighted to see that in the overly screwy new comedy Family Weekend, Chenoweth plays against type -- way against type.

Chenoweth portrays Samantha Smith-Dungy, a harried, workaholic mother of four who -- along with her artist husband (Matthew Modine) -- is taken hostage by her 16-year-old daughter (Olesya Rulin).

Rulin's Emily is upset because -- as a champion high-school jump-roper -- she has had to perform without benefit of family support. Her relatives either are too busy or too distracted to attend her competitions.

Emily's older brother (Eddie Hassell) occupies himself by pretending to be gay, a strategy he hopes will win his father's attention. What artist father wouldn't appreciate a son's "gay" sensitivity? Or so the young man thinks.

Younger brother (Robbie Tucker) doesn't seem to be particularly busy, but he's stuck with the task of remembering everything that everyone else in the family keeps forgetting. As for Emily's sister (Joey King), she often can be found prancing about the house pretending to be the kiddie prostitute Jodie Foster played in Taxi Driver.

A comedy about a subject as fraught as hostage-taking needs a lot of laughs to make itself palatable. Unfortunately, laughs are not found in abundance in director Benjamin Epps's treatment of a screenplay by Matt K. Turner.

Moreover, the story is not without its annoyances. Rulin's Emily, for example, can be hard to take. She's an aggressively organized young lady who wants her family to return to the normalcy it reflected before Dad disappeared into his room to paint and smoke dope, before Mom had to work constantly to maintain life in what appears to be an exceptionally nice home, and before her siblings all veered out of control, victims of lack of attention or of lax progressive parenting.

Too much of the time, Family Weekend plays like the pilot for a failed sitcom, but it does offer an alternative view of Chenoweth, who in this outing, seethes more than she bubbles. I'd call that progress.