Priceless ****

The French comedy-drama "Priceless" ("Hors de prix") from writer/director Pierre Salvadori is a beautiful gem of a movie in a platinum setting (Biarritz and Monaco). Audry Tautou, famous as "Amélie" (2001), but who failed to connect with English audiences as Sophie Neveu in "The DaVinci Code" (2006), is here completely in her element in this very French, very sophisticated tale of a gold digger who gets entangled with a hotel employee (Gad Elmaleh) she mistakes for a wealthy target.

Elmaleh, who was so refreshingly believable in "The Valet" (2006), here plays a similarly smitten lover who is powerless against his infatuation with Tautou, even when she continues to drain his bank account. In a timely coincidence, Elmaleh's character Jean becomes the paid companion of a wealthy older woman, and he and Irène (Tautou) compete in their accumulation of loot. Jean plays this game only to continue to be near his love, and she gradually gets to know this incredibly sincere suitor.

The settings are closely observed and richly five-star hotel swank. The characterizations ring true, and the story is an entertaining variation on an old theme. If you don't want to wait for the English remake, see it now.

Rated PG-13. 104 minutes. Pierre Salvadori - Director / Writer (writer), Benoît Graffin - Writer (writer), Philippe Martin - Producer, Gilles Henry - Cinematographer, Camille Bazbaz - Composer, Isabelle Devinck - Editor. Distributed in the U.S. by Samuel Goldwyn Films. In French with English subtitles.

Principal actors: Gad Elmaleh, Audrey Tautou, Marie-Christine Adam, Vernon Dobtcheff, Jacques Spiesser, and Annelise Hesme.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall ****

Judd Apatow has done it again. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a very funny, reality-grounded, laugh-out-loud comedy about the heartache of breakup and how to move on when it feels like the end of the world. This Apatow-produced movie was written by its star, Jason Segel (on leave from "How I Met Your Mother"), apparently using episodes from his life to score some touching comedic moments as well as an hilarious sendup of contemporary television.

Rated R. 112 minutes. Nicholas Stoller - Director, Jason Segel - Writer, Judd Apatow - Producer, Shauna Robertson - Producer, Russ T. Alsobrook - Cinematographer, Lyle Workman - Composer, Jackson De Govia - Production Designer, William Kerr - Editor. Distributed by Universal Pictures.

Principal actors: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Bill Hader, and Kala Alexander.

Street Kings **

David Ayer, who wrote "Training Day," here directs another LAPD dirty cop story. "Street Kings" is about one-man vigilante force Detective Tom Ludow (Keanu Reeves) who comes to question the loyalties of those he has trusted and his own place in the department. There is a lot of visceral, graphic action, and a memorable performance by Forest Whitaker as Tom's Captain, but the movie is marred by the usual wooden performance by Reeves and his total lack of chemistry with either his love interest Martha Higareda or with Chris Evans as an internal affairs detective.

The movie opens with some promise, as we watch the Reeves character pull himself together for something he is obviously dreading. This sequence, before we know who he is or what he's doing, carries some real suspense and interest. The payoff is as explosive and violent as any cop movie fan could hope for. And the justification makes it easy to think that we do need an executioner like Ludow on the force. Ayer produces several well-done set pieces like this in "Street Kings."

But things are not all that they appear. The killing of Ludlow's ex-partner, rumored to be talking about Ludlow himself to Internal Affairs, sets off a chain of events that finally brings all to light. The movie has its moments as it hurtles to its end, through a few LA street life scenes, as Ludlow finally figures out what's going on in the department, but high energy and urgency is not enough to make it all work for me. If you enjoy ultraviolent cop vs bad cop, this movie is for you.

Rated R. 109 minutes. David Ayer - Director, James Ellroy - Writer (screenplay) (story), Kurt Wimmer - Writer (screenplay), Jamie Moss - Writer (screenplay), Lucas Foster - Producer, Alexandra Milchan - Producer, Erwin Stoff - Producer, Gabriel Beristain - Cinematographer, Graeme Revell - Composer, Alec Hammond - Production Designer, Jeffrey Ford - Editor. Distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Principal actors: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Terry Crews, Chris Evans, Cedric the Entertainer, Common, and The Game

Smart People ***

"Smart People" is a movie about small changes, a comedy/drama character study of a self-absorbed academic who slowly comes to connect with the world around him, which includes his children, his brother, his students, even an ex-student who had a crush on him back when.

At the beginning of the movie, we meet widowed English literature professor Lawrence Wetherhold (a rather tired-looking, paunchy Dennis Quaid) dragging himself to class, and making no effort to connect with his students. His fiercely brainy, college-bound daughter (a buttoned-down Ellen Page) follows in his footsteps, arguing that "self-absorption is under-rated." Her older bother James (Ashton Holmes, the standout son in "A History of Violence") is already at Carnegie Mellon, where Dad teaches, but in his own world, largely unknown to Dad.

Enter adopted brother Chuck (a disheveled Thomas Hayden Church) just as Lawrence suffers a seizure and cannot drive for six months. The doctor who treats Lawrence is the ex-student (a toned-down Sarah Jessica Parker) who had a crush, but, like his other ex-, or even present, students, Lawrence does not remember her.

What follows is a well-designed story of family dynamics that brings Lawrence to acknowledge his unhappiness and to start to deal with the death of his wife and take an interest in his children. Interspersed with these stories is his campaign for head of the department, despite chairing the search committee. (There is the precedent of Dick Cheney, his Republican daughter points out.) But is that what he really wants?

Both the personal and the professional story lines have the ring of truth. Writer Mark Jude Poirier has labored in the academic world, and it shows. The cast is uniformly good, especially Quaid in a departure from his usual action roles of late, so kudos to first-time director Noam Murro. (But demerits go to wardrobe for giving Quaid a prosthetic paunch with visible straps.) And high praise for production designer Patti Podesta for interiors that look real and lived-in, and within a professor's budget.

Rated R. 95 Minutes. Noam Murro - Director, Mark Jude Poirier - Writer, Michael Costigan - Producer, Bridget Johnson - Producer, Michael London - Producer, Bruna Papandrea - Producer, Toby Irwin - Cinematographer, Patti Podesta - Production Designer, Robert Frazen - Editor, Yana Gorskaya - Editor.

Principal actors: Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church, Ashton Holmes, and Christine Lahti.

Leatherheads ***

Coach/director/producer George Clooney's "Leatherheads," a romantic comedy set in the roaring 'twenties in the rough world of professional football before it was tamed by rules, has some fun taking on a few icons of American culture and history on its way to unite the guy and the gal. The playbook is not original - get a new sponsor, hire a superstar - and the plays sometimes take too long to make their point, but the movie does manage to score with some snappy dialog and clever business before fumbling badly in the final minutes.

Set in 1925, the film evokes rather than chronicles the domestication of professional football. It was a time when college football had all the glory, yes, but what became the NFL was founded in 1920 as a league of mostly Midwestern teams whose players would otherwise be farming or working in the mines, and whose first president was the legendary Jim Thorpe. Perhaps writers Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly wanted to be sure they had a date that would support nascent pro football, a college star who could have been a war hero, and Prohibition.

Dodge Connelly (Clooney) is a hard-playing, hard-drinking coach/player, who also has a way with words. But he has a problem. His team has lost its sponsor and folded like so many other teams in the league. Dodge has a plan: hire war-hero and Princeton football sensation Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski of "The Office"), who is already lending his endorsements to any number of products. Soon the team acquires a new sponsor, promoter CC Frazier (Johathan Pryce), and his man Rutherford. They also pick up brassy reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) on assignment from the Chicago Tribune to cover Rutherford, and who has information that the war hero may not be all that he seems.

Things sizzle predictably as Dodge and Lexie take an immediate like/dislike for each other as "Leatherheads" pays homage to the screwball comedies of the '30's and '40's. Zellweger has some good lines, but whoever told her to think of Betty Boop make a mistake. Krasinski is well cast as the bright, somewhat goofy, all-American. Pryce is excellent as the consummate businessman. The music by Randy Newman is a standout: a wonderful mix of period-type pieces and real standards. But this is Clooney's movie; his good humor and chemistry with Zellweger keep the whole thing aloft. Until the end, that is, when some missing shot or two leaves the audience a bit bewildered instead of in on the joke. It ends happily if not well.

Rated PG-13. 114 minutes. George Clooney - Director / Producer, Duncan Brantley - Writer, Rick Reilly - Writer, Grant Heslov - Producer, Casey Silver - Producer, Newton Thomas Sigel- Cinematographer, Randy Newman - Composer, James D. Bissell - Production Designer, Stephen Mirrione - Editor. Distributed by Universal Pictures.

Principla actors: George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Root, Ezra Buzzington, John Vance, and Dan John Miller.

21 ***

Based on a true story, "21" is an entertaining movie about how some MIT students learned to count cards and win big in Las Vegas. Jim Sturgess (Jude in "Across the Universe) and Kate Bosworth (Lois Lane in "Superman Returns"), as Ben Campbell and Jill Taylor, head a young, good-looking cast. Their mentor is an independent-minded math professor, Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey), who keeps a lookout in his classes for prospects for his lucrative extra-curricular club. Once trained, his picks are so smart they can take off weekends, assume new identities, and take the casinos for hundreds of thousands.

Looking out for the casinos is Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), a loss prevention guy from the old school, beset by dwindling clients and the advent of face-recognition software that can identify the counters. (While not illegal, counting cards changes the odds, so the casinos can legally bar those they catch counting.)

Ben's secret life starts to take a toll on his relationships - with his old friends, with his mother, and even with his teammates and mentor. Some of this is predictable, and the love interest goes nowhere, but the ins an outs and ups and downs of this scheme, and Ben's plans for a final big win keep the movie humming along. It's not great art, but it's slickly done, and a fun ride.

Rated PG-13. 123 minutes. Robert Luketic - Director, Peter Steinfeld- Writer (screenplay), Allan Loeb - Writer (screenplay), Ben Mezrich - Writer (book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions"), Dana Brunetti - Producer, Michael De Luca - Producer, Kevin Spacey - Producer, Russell Carpenter - Cinematographer, David Sardy - Composer, Missy Stewart - Production Designer, Elliot Graham - Editor. Distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Principal actors: Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Spacey, Liza Lapira, Josh Gad, Aaron Yoo, and Sam Golzari.