SEARCHING FOR THE WRONG-EYED JESUS
unrated, 82 mins.

“Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus,” with its Southern backdrop and its spine made of spare, infectious bluegrass music is the documentary version of “O Brother, Where Art Thou.” Commissioned by the BBC, and inspired by alterna country singer Jim White’s album, “The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus,” this good-looking flick follows Mr. White, as he drives around Louisiana in a crapped-out 1970 Chevy looking for God.

Mr. White was a Pentecostal Christian, and the flick doles out a lot of muscular, unsentimental Jesus talk, most memorably by the electrifying Reverend Gary Howlington. But mostly it just talks, and you won’t find a more engaging bunch of stories anywhere else. Directed in 2003 by Andrew Douglas, the Brit responsible for the “Amityville Horror” remake, “Wrong-Eyed Jesus” unfortunately shares that movie’s weakness for gothic soft-headedness. There are constant encounters with transplanted Yankee poseurs who wear the South like a badge of authenticity. It’s depressing that anyone still buys that particular brand of Southern fried corn.

“Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus” is mostly concerned with surfaces, and it takes everyone’s put-on outlaw poses at face value. But the music is haunting, and when the pose is as entertaining as a subject who whips out a handgun to blast rounds into a nearby stop sign during an interview, well, I’ll take a movie that’s shallow over a movie that’s boring any day.

ON THE OUTS
unrated, 81 mins.

A skuzzy slice of street hustle, “On the Outs” wants to be more important than it really is. The filmmakers are shooting for Meaningful with a capital “M,” but their hackneyed ambitions do their compelling movie a disservice. As a simple portrait of young women getting eaten alive by the Jersey City streets, “On the Outs” is hypnotic.

Suzette (Anny Mariano) is a prim schoolgirl kept in line by her tough love mom. One day a wannabe gangsta, Terrell (Clarence “Don” Hutchinson), chats her up and it’s all over. Hungry for attention, she runs away from home and couch surfs her way to disaster with her rundown Romeo. Marisol (Paola Mendoza) is a crackhead mom who gets hit by a car while strung out and then flips when her daughter is put into foster care. Oz (Judy Marte) is a 17-year-old dealer who bops in and out of juvenile detention like it’s a cheap motel. Her mom is a recovered crackhead and her brother is mentally disabled; for her, dealing is a way to get out of the house.

These three women don’t meet, but they casually cross paths and are surrounded by an army of bit players who wander in and out of their plotlines like they’re in a Robert Altman movie. All three actresses turn in strong performances, but their director keeps wanting to make Big Points. In theater there’s a rule that if you show a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the third. That rule now extends to pretentious filmmakers: If they show the Statue of Liberty in the first shot, it’s going to be used as ironic counterpoint in the last. It’s a testament to how wrongheaded their intentions are that their Meaningful Shot of the Statue of Liberty feels amateurish, but their final close-up on the face of Ms. Marte feels just right.