HH

Dir: Ric Roman Waugh

With: Dwayne Johnson, Susan Sarandon

Runtime: 112 minutes

WHAT a movie star Dwayne Johnson, former football star and wrestler, has become. Even when he is starring in a lacklustre picture, as here, he has enough charisma to carry a film to the end.

Johnson plays John Matthews, an ordinary Joe who owns a building supplies company. When his son lands in trouble with the law after a drugs bust, it's daddy to the rescue.

Ric Roman Waugh's drama comes with an "inspired by true events" tag, and it's certainly a chewy enough tale of drug laws and unintended consequences. Susan Sarandon pops up, too, as a local district attorney who has her own reasons for helping Matthews.

As gripping as all this might be, Roman Waugh paces the piece as if it's a television series in several parts, leaving what should be a tightly plotted drama lacking muscle. Not something that can be said for the gym-sculpted Mr Johnson.

Admission (12A)

HH

Dir: Paul Weitz

With: Tina Fey, Paul Rudd

Runtime: 108 minutes

IF Paul Weitz's comedy drama about a Princeton university admissions officer (Tina Fey) was a formal application for your cinema buck it would be marked "Tries hard, but no cigar".

Fey plays Portia, busily going about her business of assessing applications to the Ivy League institution until the head of an unorthodox new school, played by Paul Rudd, rocks up to persuade her of the special but hidden talents of one of his pupils. Though she is barred from becoming involved with any of the applicants, Rudd's headmaster convinces her that there is something special about this particular youth.

Adapted from the novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, there is more to the tale, a lot more, but since most of it comes across as ranging from far-fetched to barmy, Weitz's picture has problems from the off and doesn't recover much as it goes along.

Between that drawback, and the general lack of laughs, even for a comedy drama, Admission bumps along slowly and uneasily, with only Fey and Rudd to recommend it.

Even the appearance of Lily Tomlin as Portia's mother fails to shake things up.

Black Rock (15)

HH

Dir: Katie Aselton

With: Katie Aselton, Kate Bosworth

Runtime: 80 minutes

HERE'S an oddity. Three female friends (Kate Bosworth, Katie Aselton, Lake Bell), two of them still stuck in a grudge match over an incident in the past, go camping on what they think is the deserted island of Black Rock off the coast of Maine. Once there, however, they meet three servicemen just back from Iraq.

Stories and booze are traded, secrets bubble to the surface, and the night goes on from there.

So far, so basic thriller set-up. But writer-director-star Katie Aselton's co-writer is her husband, Mark Duplass, one of the founders of the indie film "mumblecore" movement (think Baghead, Jeff Who Lives At Home), which means there are lots of rambling conversations and heavy doses of naturalistic acting.

This approach sits bizarrely with the action part of the movie, when it eventually starts, and gives the entire drama an unconvincing feel.

Thin stuff, even at just 80 minutes long, which is unlikely to satisfy either the indie crowd or the thriller set.

Film A-Z: Page 18

Edinburgh International Film Festival Reviews: Page 19