Nadav Lapid takes another jump forward with his fine new Israeli/French film, SYNONYMS

Not that this exceptionally creative, challenging and deeply unsettling filmmaker has that much farther to go. From Nadav Lapid's bizarre and gripping Policeman (2011) through The Kindergarten Teacher (2014) and its unnecessary but certainly acceptable remake (from 2018, which Lapid did not direct) to his newest stunner, SYNONYMS, in which, as ever, his antagonist cannot fully live or maybe even survive while dealing with the horrendous contradictions of life in the hugely divided, corrupt and corrupting state of Israel today.

Mr. Lapid, shown at right, is not only pointing his finger at Israel; France, the country to which our "hero" has come for escape, takes its licks, as well. And any thinking person here in our deeply divided USA watching this film will also, TrustMovies suspects, wince in some kind of guilty, angry recognition.

The hero/antihero this time around is Yoav, a young, unhappy Israeli who seems to be suffering from everything from home-country dysfunction to a case of OCD and, though he understands and can speak some French, is counting on his lightweight French/ Hebrew dictionary to get him through each day.

Yoav is played by an in-every-way impressive newcomer named Tom Mercier (above and below), who gives the kind of performance that is so real, so moment-to-moment strange and compelling that you are not likely to forget it. You're not likely to forget Mercier either, for his face and body -- which we see all of and fairly often (there's ample full-frontal and full-rear nudity) -- are of the sort of that legends are made. Not to objectify here (goodness, no!), but M. Mercier has perhaps the best-looking male posterior in movies, and his frontal view is quite something, too (he often seem to be semi-erect).

So, how does a young man, without the equivalent of a French "green card," make his way in Paris? On the kindness of strangers, of course, via a wealthy young Frenchman out to do good while fulfilling his own needs, and his older-but-still-pretty girlfriend, both of whom help and use Yoav. The young man Emile, played by Quentin Dolmaire (below, left), that gorgeous kid from My Golden Days, proves visually stunning once again, while Louise Chevillotte (at right, two photos below) does subtle intuitive work in her role as Charlotte, the used-and-using girlfriend.

Yoav's job -- with a security company that provides this for Israelis in France -- leads us to some marvelous, if strange people and work, all of which is shown in often fast, frenetic scenes that make their point only later, when we've pieced together events and the unsettlingly mixed feelings they've engendered.

There's an extended scene on the Paris subway involving Yoav and his new, hugely troubled friend, that is as suspenseful and anxiety-provoking as any you'll have seen. Lapid's film is also allusion-riddled -- to security and what it means, in France and elsewhere; to the miasma of the military; to Jewish and/or Muslim identity; and especially to the allusiveness of words and their meaning.

Synonyms is also about as homoerotic a movie as I've encountered in a long while, though Lapid never pushes it over the boundary to homosexual. This is an interesting tightrope walk, and the filmmaker -- who both directed and co-wrote the screenplay with his father Haim Lapid -- manages it all with enormous elan. Women are noticeably secondary here -- to be used and enjoyed, of course -- but it's mostly about the power struggles/friendships between the guys.

Visually, Synonyms is Lapid's most impressive work to date (the cinematographer is the filmmaker's usual, Shai Goldman): alternately ravishingly beautiful in its flow and pace, sometimes simply quiet and cold. Once in awhile it goes overboard (in my estimation) but mostly it is almost wildly on-the-mark in the manner in which it keeps us as off-balance as is our hero.

Performances down the line are not simply solid but complete -- especially in the case of Mercier, who will have you thoroughly rooting for Yoav, even though you come to realize that he is lost. Yet perhaps not completely. Is there hope? Lapid may close the door., but I don't think he locks it.

See for yourself, as Synonyms -- from Kino Lorber, in French and Hebrew with English subtitles, and running 123 minutes -- opens theatrically in New York City tomorrow, Friday, October 25, at Film at Lincoln Center and the Quad Cinema; in Los Angeles on November 1 at the Landmark NuArt; and here in South Florida on November 15 at Miami's Coral Gables Art Cinema, and on November 29 at the Lake Worth Playhouse and the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters around the country, click here & scroll down.

Peter Berg's PATRIOTS DAY is a (sort of) patriotic, suspenseful look at that infamous Boston Marathon

PATRIOTS DAY, which opens nationwide today, proves a pretty good example of what a docu-drama can accomplish when it is written with some flair, filmed smartly and acted well, This one, directed and co-written (with four other writers) by Peter Berg (shown below) takes us back a few years to the 2013 Boston Marathon and the sudden bombings that rendered the event what is now referred to -- as with every act of (so often) homegrown terrorism -- as a national "tragedy." I would call the recent and rigged election of Donald Trump far more tragic for America than any of these murderous events, but the dreadful results of this election on everyone except the wealthy are only beginning to unfurl.

As is his wont -- see Deepwater Horizon, Lone Survivor  or his early (and still best) film, Very Bad Things -- Mr. Berg does a busy, brawny job putting together the many pieces of his docu-drama. Patriots Day is filled with all kinds of characters, and those to be major to the movie are singled out early. Most of these are based on real people, and the film has been cast (with a single exception) exceedingly well, with faces and figures that seem for the most part quite reasonable and real. The cast here does not resemble the usual ultra-buffed-and-toned, perfect-teeth people from so many of those TV, cable and movie journeys into the supposedly "real."

The one exception, unfortunately, is the movie's star, Mark Wahlberg (above and below, center), who gives a perfectly OK, if occasionally heavy-handed performance as the Boston cop who holds the movie together and becomes its focal point. This character does not even exist in reality, so basing the movie around him seems much too easy a way to earn questionable emotions via short-cut storytelling. (That's Michelle Monaghan, two photos below and at bottom, who has the thankless role of the made-up wife of this made-up character.)

So many other of the real characters, shown here in both their acting counterparts and (at the finale) as themselves, are so vital and interesting, that I believe the movie could have succeeded even better by simply using them and leaving out Wahlberg's created-out-of-whole-cloth cop. As much as his many scenes might seem to help hold the film together, they're actually unnecessary and simply add foot-tapping time to the film's very long, two-hour and seven-minute length. Tightened up, it might have zipped by and still had its cumulative emotional effect.

The movie's most suspenseful scene involves the kidnapping/car-jacking of a young chinese immigrant, the results of which will keep on edge anyone who did not follow all the ins and out of this bombing scenario (and very probably even those who did). Unfortunately the scene ends with our heroic fellow telling the cops to "Get those motherfuckers!" Even if the guy actually uttered these by-now-uber-cliched words, here, they come off as mere fodder for the mainstream.

The finale, in addition to showing us the real people involved, also demonstrates how Boston came together in a way in which citizens helped each other through the crisis. It's good to be reminded of this, though the movie does bang its point home a bit hard. (That's a thinned-down John Goodman, above, center, as the police commissioner, and Kevin Bacon, below, as the FBI guy in charge of the case.)

Still, for the most part, Patriots Day does a good job as docu-drama, moving fast and steadily toward the initial incidents, and then showing us the police/FBI work that went into discovering the identities of the perpetrators. All this does bring up an interesting point about surveillance vis-a-vis privacy. In this case, having cameras everywhere in public places was able to bring the culprits to justice and makes its case for this kind of surveillance.

On the other hand, all the private phone-tapping and email-probing did little good in this instance (the government has evidently not been able to make a case against the older Tsarnaev brother's wife). The fight for privacy of all Americans in terms of their correspondence -- spoken and visual -- still matters.

From CBS Films, Patriots Day opens wide today, Friday, January 13. To find a theater near you, simply click here and then scroll down, type your zip code into the proper slot, and press ENTER.

New from Hal Hartley --via FANDOR-- the highly theatrical, diverse & funny potluck MY AMERICA

Just about the perfect "watch" for Independence Day (on which day the film made its debut via FANDOR), MY AMERICA, the new work from Hal Hartley, is almost nothing like what you usually get from this man, one of America's premier independent filmmakers ever since his first full-length feature premiered in 1989 -- the same year, by the way, that Steven Soderbergh premiered his first full-length feature. While you could hardly find two more divergent career paths, for me it has long been Hartley who has kept the faith, so to speak -- even if some of his more recent films have failed to find much or nearly any audience. Still, Hartley (shown below) has maintained his "quirk," offering us many good films and one great one (Henry Fool), while Soderbergh bounces from independents to commercial blockbusters (or would-be) and back again with ease.

Hold on, though: If you're expecting anything like the usual Hartley endeavor, better set your expectations differently. My America is a compilation film with its roots in legitimate theater, made up of around 20 short monologues written by 20 different playwrights. These have been culled from the 50 monologues that were first presented at Maryland's Center Stage in 2012. From those 50, these 20, I guess, were chosen to grace Hartley's 78-minute finished film. Since the left-out playwrights include the likes of Anna Deavere Smith and Christopher Durang, one can only marvel or worry at the process of selection.

As good as many of these monologues are, My America also made me pine for Hartley's writing, nudging me to realize that, as a filmmaker, his work is even more dependent on his screenplay and dialog than on his visual sense. So, once you've set your mind to enjoying these varied and interesting, funny and not-so theater pieces, photographed in differing locations, some of which could easily be (and maybe were) the stage itself, you can relax into appreciating what these writers have to say about America today. And also appreciate the consummate skill with which most of the actors perform the playwrights' work.

The fact that these monologues are at least two years old hardly changes their worth or timeliness, since our country is in pretty much the same shape now as it was in 2012. As with any series of individual pieces, some are better than other. None take a nose dive, however, and several -- including Bekah Brunstetter's piece in which a Southern mom (two photos up) talks about food, death and the one percent; Dan Dietz's soldier's tale (above) of Afghanistan; and Kristen Greenidge's "Hit & Run" (below) -- are splendid little gems.

The performers are often quite wonderful, too, helping their monologue take off into the stratosphere. Kristine Nielsen, shown at bottom, plays a lady in pearls who tracks the decline of modern civilization back to a very odd and funny source, while Thomas Jay Ryan (below) essays a half-hidden fellow who tells us of fallen Presidents and asks if we are the cat, the mouse, or just "one of these assholes." Mr. Ryan is, as he often proves to be, funny perfection.

Themes covered here range from our current economic times to the "magic" of real estate, from our non-ending war(s) to our ever-present racism, prison, aging, Asians and more. There's even a Southern musical interlude, written by Polly Pen and performed by Jeb Brown (below), about little Jimmy spinning in a baseball field.

Think of the film as a welcome antidote to the latest confusion from Dinesh D'Souza and his America. The only piece here that D'Souza might cotton to is the first: Gyydion Suilebhan's monologue about a dad going all teary-eyed patriotic at a sports event.

All in all, My America is a rich feast of hors d'oeuvres, rather than dinner. Yet I suspect that it may seem even better and more nourishing a few hours after viewing. Which you can do now, thanks to Fandor.
Click here for specifics.  (If you live in the NYC area, you can also see the film at a one-time screening at the IFC Center, this coming Wednesday evening, July 7, at 7pm, hosted by Hal Hartley and Fandor's Ted Hope.)