Our Flick of the Week is Oliver Stone’s insufferable violent comedy “U-Turn,” in which Sean Penn stars as a guy driving to Las Vegas to pay off a debt to a loan shark, which already has cost him two fingers. Along the way, he develops car trouble near Superior, Ariz., a backwater town populated by creeps. And that’s the movie. A raft of very good actors — Jon Voight, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton — pop up in meaningless roles as thorns in Penn’s side, whether they’re fixing his car, grossing him out with chewing gum-filled spittle or hiring him to kill off the prettiest young woman in town (Jennifer Lopez).
Maybe each of these actors was intrigued by the opportunity to work with the controversial Stone, whose recent films consistently have been about something. That’s not the case here, though, in a lame comedy that plays like a series of film school workshop scenes. Penn and Lopez establish no chemistry, and whether Nolte’s hateful character lives or dies is of no consequence. R. (star) 1/2
– KISS THE GIRLS. Another pointless serial killer movie that is particularly disappointing because it wastes the considerable talent of two major actors, Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. He plays a Washington, D.C., homicide detective, and she is a medical intern. They team up to track the serial killer who has kidnapped Freeman’s niece and almost took Judd’s character hostage. Pictures like this are similar to the standard, teenage mad-slasher flick in that they connect violence with sex and offer rape fantasies. R. (star) (star)
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– THE LOCUSTS. A failure, as Ashley Judd’s considerable talent is wasted playing a character who has no interior logic and could do almost anything at any time. She is approached by a sexy new stranger in town, and what follows is a lame attempt to mix humor and violence in the manner of “Pulp Fiction.” But it doesn’t work. R. (star) (star)
– THE MATCHMAKER. A charming, quirky, funny yarn about a wise-cracking Sunset Boulevard political operative (the always entertaining Janeane Garofalo) assigned to go back to Ireland to track down any Irish relatives the doofus U.S. senator she’s campaigning for might have there. Better than the political gags are the Irish working-class folks who meet Garofalo at a family dinner. One is loopier than the next. R. (star) (star) (star)
-=New this week