“The Beach Bum”

**

(R, 1:35)

“The Beach Bum” isn’t much more than a series of music videos featuring songs like the Peggy Lee hit “Is That All There Is?” to, inevitably, “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett. Matthew McConaughey plays Moondog, a poet who lives in the Florida Keys as “the world’s most prolific,” most consistently stoned poet. His heiress wife Minnie (Isla Fisher) lives separately from Moondog and is having an affair with a family friend played by Snoop Dogg. Things play out episodically. Moondog’s daughter gets married, whereupon he learns of his wife’s infidelity, prompting a reaction that keeps the film afloat for a while. Moondog winds up in rehab, meeting up with another stoner played by Zac Efron. They bust out and mug a Florida retiree for his golf cart. Martin Lawrence snags a few laughs as the world’s worst dolphin watch tour guide.

“Hotel Mumbai”

****

(R, 2:05)

As horrific as the recent terrorist attack in New Zealand was, it was not on the scale of the events depicted in “Hotel Mumbai,” a terrorist attack that took place over four days in 2008 and left more than 160 dead in six locations in Mumbai. The film focuses on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, a landmark of luxury and one of the terrorists’ key targets. The solid cast is led by Dev Patel as a hotel waiter caught in the crisis, with Jason Isaacs, Armie Hammer and Nazanin Boniadi portraying hotel guests forced to cope with situations they never dreamed of. What “Hotel Mumbai” does best is re-create the terror and confusion of this kind of situation. It also adds texture and character to the terrorists, depicting them as poor, uneducated and easy prey for manipulative radicalizers. Most remarkable – and true – is that many of the staff, who knew secret ways out of the hotel and could have escaped, elected to stay behind and help, engaging in a nerve-racking cat-and-mouse game to keep guests and co-workers out of the crosshairs of the attackers.

Not reviewed

“The Mustang”

A troubled prisoner is chosen for a rehabilitation program involving the training of wild horses in this Sundance Lab-developed film. (R, 1:36)

“Ulan”

Filipino romance about a woman whose had her heart broken several times but then meets someone new. (PG, 1:34) In Tagalog.

“Unplanned”

Anti-abortion film about a Planned Parenthood clinic employee who changes her mind. (R, 1:50)