THE BAYTOWN OUTLAWS

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Confirmation that January scrapes the bottom of the barrel for film releases, “The Baytown Outlaws” is as run-down a piece of cinematic tripe as you would expect. Checking in on the waning careers of Billy Bob Thornton and Eva Longoria, newbie co-screenwriter/director Barry Battles does neither actor any favors. Also burned at the altar of filmic crap is Thomas Brodie-Sangster (“Nanny McPhee”), who once seemed to have a bright future ahead.

A Tarantino-knock-off of the lowest order, “The Baytown Outlaws” announces its shoddy intentions with an opening blood bath sequence that is a study in bad taste. Good old boy Alabama redneck siblings McQueen (Travis Fimmel), Lincoln (Daniel Cudmore), and Brick Oodie (Clayne Crawford) dole out shotgun justice for local Sheriff Henry Millard (Andre Braugher). If they accidentally off the wrong bunch of lowlifes, so what?

Enter slinky Celeste (Langoria) to bait the scuzzy bunch with $25,000 in bounty money them to extract her 17-year-old wheelchair bound (and mute) son Rob (Brodie-Sangster) from the clutches of her well defended drug kingpin ex Carlos (Thornton). Rob’s trust fund is about to come due on the boy’s 18th birthday. Killing Carlos is part of the assignment. Clichés surface like flies on manure. A fancy-pants ATF detective from Chicago rattles Sherriff Millard’s cage. The snotty Sherriff, in turn, spares no opportunity to insult and snub the Northern intruder.

The Oodie boys botch the kidnapping inasmuch as they leave Carlos alive to send his thugs after them. The story collapses into a chase-and-battle adventure that leave much blood smeared on various surfaces. Here is a movie that will last one week at your local cinema. Even that, is one week too long.

Rated R. 98 mins.

Zero Stars

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THE IMPOSSIBLE

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Yet one more example of a real-life story someone thought would “make a great movie,” “The Impossible” is as flat and predictable as they come. The story is based on one family’s precarious survival of the Christmas Day, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which was caused by the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.

The only thing the film has to offer — and it is no small contribution — is its impressive special effects that put the audience right in the middle of Mother Nature’s most destructive wrath. The tsunami sequences are astounding, and not for the weak or elderly. This is big screen spectacle like you’ve not seen before. Even Clint Eastwood’s immersive treatment of the same devastating event in his 2010 film “Hereafter,” pales by comparison.

Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts play a British couple — Henry and Maria — who are on holiday at a beach resort hotel in Thailand. Oblivious to the warning signals of the approaching wall of water, the family is broadsided by the catastrophe that separates the family in the blink of an eye. The badly wounded Maria searches with her oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) for the rest of their family. Henry, in the meantime, carries out his own desperate attempt to reunite with his family.

Although the ensemble performances are solid, the story is simple to a fault. Not every dramatic real-life story can be turned into a great or even good movie. “The Impossible” falls somewhere below mediocre.

Rated PG13. 107 mins.

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JACK REACHER

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Fans of Lee Childs’s hugely popular detective novels will have a tough time accepting the 5’ 7” Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, a hulking six-foot-five freelance investigator/enforcer with "hands the size of frozen turkeys.”

Inversely, the fact of Tom Cruise’s ownership of the cinema franchise won’t provide an easy time for movie-inspired newcomers to the books. Mitigating the vast physical differences between the books’ stoic coffee-swilling protagonist with Cruise’s modest slow-burn interpretation is a bridge too far. Better casting options could easily have come from Liam Neeson, Vincent D.Onofio (my personal choice for the role), or Tim Robbins.

That said, “Jack Reacher” is a perfectly competent popcorn movie adaptation insofar as Hollywood action thrillers go. Screenwriter/ director Christopher McQuarrie (“The Way of the Gun”) strikes a respectable balance between gut-wrenching action and built-in narrative suspense. One car-chase scene in particular turns up the heat on a well-worn action movie device. McQuarrie is slated to direct Cruise’s next “Mission: Impossible” installment — due out in 2015.

Based on the Lee Childs novel “One Shot,” the story revolves around Jack Reacher’s efforts to solve a crime involving James Barr (Joseph Sikora, a tweaky military-trained sniper accused of taking out a group of civilians — think the opening sequence of “Dirty Harry.” Rosamund Pike is acceptable if not thoroughly engaging as Helen, the attorney daughter to Rodin, the local D.A. (Richard Jenkins). Intrigue and betrayal rub together as Reacher is led to a confrontation with Werner Herzog scene-stealing baddie, known only as The Zec. Robert Duvall brings his reliable acting skills to bear as Cash, a rifle-range owner with his own bag of tricks.

So long as you accept that the twain will never meet between the film and book versions of Jack Reacher, you should be able to enjoy each exclusively if not necessarily as a compliment to one another.

Rated PG-13. 130 mins.

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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