TAKE MY EYES
unrated, 109 minutes

Movies have raised the stakes so high that we’ve all become numb. Hohum, they’re stealing $1 billion. Sigh, the planet’s going to be destroyed by an asteroid. Oh look, it’s another unstoppable serial killer. But Spain’s “Take My Eyes” proves that if you give something as simple as a marriage the right kind of attention, you can come up with a white-knuckle thriller with more tension per square inch than any of this month’s Hollywood thrill rides.

Pilar (Laia Marull) is a stressed-out housewife who runs away from home in her slippers, taking her son, Juan (Nicolas Fernandez Luna), and hiding out at her sister’s house. Later we learn that she’s hiding from her husband. Antonio (Luis Tosar) is a glowering, sexy tower of menace trapped in a lousy job whose daily frustrations pile up until he’s seething with rage and bouncing Pilar off the walls. The filmmakers stay away from social commentary and refuse to reduce their movie to a book report on domestic violence.

Antonio turns out to be a decent guy who can’t seem to get it right and the harder he tries the worse things get. This will upset people who think that men who hit women are irredeemable monsters, but it makes the scenes where Pilar and Antonio are alone together so nerve-wracking that the film seems to be vibrating with anger, fear, and stress.

The filmmakers paint a painful portrait of two people trying to save a marriage that may no longer be worth saving. At the 2004 Goya Awards (Spain’s Oscars) “Take My Eyes” won Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Sound. It deserved them all.

– Grady Hendrix

SHE’S THE MAN
PG-13, 105 minutes

From “Yentl” to “Just One of the Guys” and finally to “She’s the Man,” the drag king movie has been steadily devolving. Right at the beginning of this teen money grabber is the unlikely title card: “Based on ‘Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare.” Five minutes later, Amanda Bynes has a tampon shoved up one nostril. Shakespeare’s ghost was looking for revenge; director Andy Fickman would be a good target.

In this latest iteration, Ms. Bynes pretends to be her brother, takes his place at boarding school, and joins the soccer team to prove that girls are just as good as boys. The script is a pathetic, miserable thing cobbled together by two of Hollywood’s worst writers, Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz (“Ten Things I Hate About You,” “Legally Blonde”), and the dialogue is so bad that even the teenage girls around me groaned as the lousy lines piled up.

But the producers should send the cast bonus checks, especially Amanda Bynes – who almost single-handedly rescues this movie. Her performance as a lumpy male lothario slaying the ladies with a voice that’s one part hillbilly and two parts Eminem carries this flick for more than an hour. David Cross, as the headmaster, turns in his best movie performance yet, and Channing Tatum demonstrates that he’s more than just the anonymous young beefcake his career to date would suggest.

– G.H.

THE DEVIL’S MINER
unrated, 82 minutes

The miners of Potosi, Bolivia, may go to church, but in their tunnels they worship the devil. Shrines to the horned god Tio adorn every mine, and 14-year-old Basilio prays daily to ward off shaft collapses. That’s just reality for the young miner, and so goes the clear-eyed stance of this strikingly matter-of-fact documentary.

“The Devil’s Miner” lets Basilio explain his life in his own words: 24-hour shifts, coca leaves to keep peppy, and school days that feel like vacation. The well-spoken teenager is the breadwinner for his family, who live in a shack by the mines. Covered in dust, he learns his trade from his fatalistic boss and passes it on to his younger brother.

Basilio’s quiet courage is nothing short of inspiring. Things might be different “if I had a father,” he wonders aloud. “But I don’t.” He patiently saves money to move his mother and siblings to the city. Silicosis awaits him otherwise. He’s also just a kid, throwing water balloons at girls (who “fight too much” to be of interest).

“The Devil’s Miner” portrays its subjects with dignity instead of the half-formed globalization commentary found in the likes of last year’s worker-misery favorite “Darwin’s Nightmare.” The filmmakers gain clarity from their local focus.

Some things, however, aren’t new to the modern age. Basilio and company work in the same mines where Spaniards imprisoned villagers 400 years ago and worked them to death.

Digital cameras give the film an eternalday quality. That suits the yawning vistas of the mountaintop village and the timeless tunnels of the mines. But the filmmakers wisely stop short of attempting any neo-National Geographic exoticism. Basilio’s plight needs no embellishment.

– Nicolas Rapold

FIND ME GUILTY
R, 124 minutes

Lawyers in both the real and the film worlds are often accused of distracting juries with “cheap theatrics,” but Sidney Lumet’s “Find Me Guilty” revels in the histrionics of the courtroom.

Vin Diesel plays Giacomo “Jackie Dee” DiNorscio, a member of the Lucchese family, one of New Jersey’s most infamous crime syndicates, and a key defendant in what was then the biggest criminal case in U.S. history.

The FBI offered DiNorscio the chance to turn state’s evidence, an opportunity that his deep-seated sense of loyalty and affection for his two families forced him to reject. Despite repeated warnings from the judge, his 20 co-defendants, and their lawyers, DiNorscio elected to represent himself and turned the court into a stage for his comedy routine, and a decidedly blue one at that.

DiNorscio’s supposed sense of humor, charisma, and persuasiveness are all at the center of this film, while the key issue of whether or not he or the other defendants are truly guilty of the alleged crimes is strangely irrelevant.

The film repeatedly tells us just how funny DiNorscio is – he refers to himself as not a gangster but a “gagster” – but fails to show this to be true. If the court becomes a theater, if DiNorscio can captivate the jury, so must Mr. Diesel captivate the movie audience.