Destroyer

Warning: I’m going to sort-of spoil “Destroyer” (2018) for you. Nicole Kidman uglies herself up to play a burnt-out detective with one last shot to close the case that’s haunted her for 17 years. It felt like “Rush: The Later Years” or a dark take on “Saving Grace.” We keep going back and forth between her ill-fated days undercover and her current attempt to find resolution. I was kind of getting into it, although there’s too much I’ve-been-a-bad-mommy subplot. But the film buries a lie in the back-and-forth to create a plot twist, and I don’t like being lied to.

Stronger

For most of the movie, it’s hard to watch Jake Gyllenhaal’s depiction of Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman in “Stronger” (2017) because Bauman is such a screw-up. It’s refreshing, because most person-overcomes-adversity movies are so schmaltzy, but it’s still uncomfortable to watch because he’s SUCH a screw-up, as is his whole dysfunctional, working-class Boston family. (It’s like “The Fighter” but more pathetic.) But then Bauman meets the guy who saved him (the guy in the cowboy hat). Turns out the guy gets a chance to save him all over again. Cue the schmaltz. Less refreshing. More comfortable. Not better.