Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramírez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll

Stephen Gaghan

Former Hollywood golden boy Stephen Gaghan was at the top of his game when he seemingly vanished from the industry following 2005’s “Syriana,” so it’s easy to see why his latest project (which he directed but didn’t write) has been met with guarded enthusiasm. After actually watching the film, however, it’s not surprising that it was shut out of this year’s awards race. Although the movie is loosely based on incredible true events and features a committed performance from Matthew McConaughey, “Gold” fails to capitalize on its intriguing premise. The potential was certainly there, but despite the similarities to other recent films about greed and the American Dream like “The Big Short” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Gaghan’s sophomore effort lacks the energy and wit that made those movies so enjoyable.

The film opens in 1981 with Reno-based prospector Kenny Wells (McConaughey) working for his family’s successful mining company. Fast-forward seven years later and the business has fallen on hard times due to a crumbling economy and the death of Kenny’s father. He’s barely keeping the company afloat, working out of a bar to save on expenses. But just when it seems like Kenny has finally hit rock bottom, he has a dream about discovering gold in the uncharted jungles of Indonesia and decides to make one last gamble, pawning his jewelry and jetting off to Southeast Asia in order to convince geologist Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramírez) – who has a theory about untapped mineral reserves in the country – to partner with him. Though they initially have zero luck finding anything, the pair eventually strikes gold in a big way, attracting the attention of Wall Street banker Brian Woolf (Corey Stoll). But as everyone fights to get a piece of Kenny and Michael’s success, the whole thing threatens to come crashing down around them.

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Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Edgar Ramirez, Allison Janney

Tate Taylor

Paula Hawkins’ “The Girl on the Train” instantly drew comparisons to Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” thanks to the use of multiple viewpoints, but let’s make something clear: as enjoyable as “Train” was to read, it doesn’t come close to plumbing the emotional depths that Flynn wrote into the truly psychotic Amy Dunne. At the same time, this works in the favor of the film version of “The Girl on the Train.” Erin Cressida Wilson’s script puts a higher percentage of the source material into the film (the one thing book fanatics complain about the most), and the story’s main obstacle (recovering a lost memory) is a tried and true film device. Ask anyone who saw “Jason Bourne” earlier this year.

Films, however, reveal things that books do not, and that is what prevents “The Girl on the Train” from hitting the next level. It is competently made, with some outstanding performances, but the book is capable of concealing things that the film cannot. And with that, we will say no more.

Rachel (Emily Blunt) is a sad, drunk divorcee, taking the train five days a week to a job she no longer has. The train takes her by the house she once lived in, the one her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) now shares with Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) and their baby daughter. A couple of houses down, Rachel sees a younger couple that seems blissfully in love. Recognizing that they have what she’s lost, she becomes obsessed with them, giving them fake names and occupations while she spies on them for a few seconds each day. One day, Rachel sees what appears to be a betrayal on a member of the happy couple, and when one of them disappears shortly after, she offers what she thinks she knows to the police, only to discover that in doing so, she has made herself the prime suspect.

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Edgar Ramirez, Robert de Niro, Ana de Armas, Usher Raymond, Ruben Blades, Ellen Barkin, John Turturro

Jonathan Jakubowicz

Most boxing fans know the name Roberto Duran, but for someone who’s widely regarded as one of the greatest fighters of all time (in addition to holding titles in four different weight classes, he’s the only person to beat Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime), Duran lacks the mainstream recognition of fellow boxers like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and even Leonard himself. Writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz hopes to remedy that with his new film, “Hands of Stone,” but while it boasts a pair of solid performances from stars Edgar Ramirez and Robert De Niro, the true-life drama doesn’t offer anything different from the dozens of other boxing movies that came before it. “Hands of Stone” is your typical rise-and-fall redemption story, so aggressively mediocre that Jakubowicz would have been better off taking some risks and failing than to settle for this.

The film begins in 1971 with Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran (Ramirez) already on the rise. Despite his natural talent, however, Duran lacks the discipline required to succeed at the highest level, so his manager Carlos Eleta (Ruben Blades) convinces legendary trainer Ray Arcel (De Niro) to turn him into a world champion. Arcel has been retired since being run out of boxing by the mafia nearly 20 years earlier, but he sees something in Duran that reignites his love of the sport and agrees to train him for free, a stipulation of his agreement with local gangster Frankie Carbo (John Turturro). Though the hotheaded and fervently nationalistic Duran is hesitant about working with an American trainer due to his experiences growing up in the U.S.-controlled Canal Zone, he ultimately learns to trust Arcel and builds a successful career over the next decade, culminating in a pair of fights with American sports icon Sugar Ray Leonard (Usher Raymond) that would both make and break his career.

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Luke Bracey, Édgar Ramírez, Teresa Palmer, Ray Winstone, Delroy Lindo

Ericson Core

Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 cult classic “Point Break” has already been remade once before with “The Fast and the Furious” (if not in name, then certainly in spirit), but whereas that film retained many of the key elements that made “Point Break” so enjoyable, the 2015 version – which coincidentally is directed by Ericson Core, the cinematographer on the first “Fast and Furious” – is an overly serious dud. Though replacing Californian surf culture with the high-adrenaline world of extreme sports was a smart choice by writer Kurt Wimmer, the movie is hindered by an overbearing stream of hokey Zen philosophy and a paltry story that cares less about its characters than what cool stunt they get to do next.

Luke Bracey stars as Johnny Utah, an extreme sports poly-athlete who joins the FBI after his best friend dies in a motocross accident. Desperate to prove to his academy instructor (Delroy Lindo) that he’s ready for field duty, Johnny volunteers to go undercover to investigate a gang of fellow extreme athletes posing as modern day Robin Hoods who steal from the rich and give to the poor. Johnny believes that the group, led by the enigmatic Bodhi (Édgar Ramírez), is attempting to complete The Ozaki 8 – a series of trials created to honor the forces of nature and deliver spiritual enlightenment – which they’re using to rationalize their crimes. They don’t view themselves as criminals, but rather as righteous eco-activists who give back to the planet by returning something that was taken from it (like raining diamonds onto the streets of Mumbai) after each death-defying ordeal. But as Johnny’s admiration for Bodhi grows the closer he gets to the idealistic daredevil, he must decide where his true loyalties lie.

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