Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

CAKE

Much ado has been made of Jennifer Aniston’s decision to forgo her golden hair and impeccable makeup for the really real realness of real-life reality in Cake, but that is all distraction from the rest of this equally drab film. Aniston is Nina, who suffers from depression, painkiller addiction and chronic back pain, and (understandably) has a dour personality to go with all that baggage. If the film had held true to its heroine’s grim nature, things might have been OK (for the audience, at least). But instead, it disappoints by falling back on conventional, syrupy status-quo methods to make Nina all better again.

Opens Jan. 23 at Kahala

THE DROP

The Drop follows all the well-worn rules of the gangster genre as it lurks in a brooding Brooklyn bar that serves as a cash drop for Chechan crooks. Sweet-natured bartender Bob (Tom Hardy) adopts a stray pit bull as he and his desperate, dissatisfied uncle Marv (James Gandolfini, in his final performance before his unexpected death) eke out a living. A small robbery has wide-reaching consequences, with bloody conclusions for most of the players. Bad men get their due; good men don’t escape unscathed. It’s all fairly predictable (spoiler: gentle Bob isn’t as nice as he seems), but still comfortable in that way only gangster films are.

Plays noon, 3:45 and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 23 and 25 at the Movie Museum

THE LUNCHBOX

An accidental wrong delivery — a housewife’s lunch, intended for her husband, ends up with a lonely businessman instead — seems like a flimsy premise to base an entire movie on, but this movie is full of delicious surprises. The two heroes forge an unlikely yet convincingly genuine connection. Their problems are mundane, but despondently real: Ila struggles with a neglectful husband and sick parents, and Saajan with a bleak retirement and no satisfaction at work. Do they fall in love? Of course they do. But thankfully, the movie leaves their ending open, heavy with potential,, like unopened lunch containers still packed with food. Plays 7 p.m. Jan. 22 and 12:30 p.m. Jan. 30 at Doris Duke Theatre