"Chaos Theory" is not exactly bad, but it disappointingly never really discovers the movie that it wants to be. Frank Allen (Ryan Reynolds) tells his soon-to-be son-in-law the tale of how his marriage to Susan (Emily Mortimer) once nearly fell apart and the ways in which the experience deeply changed how he has looked at the world ever since.
Director Marcos Siega ("Pretty Persuasion") allows the film to flail about wildly, changing its tone from heartfelt domestic drama to ironic farce to broad slapstick on a whim, never seeming to grasp to what end events have been set in motion. In trying to find a hook for "Chaos Theory," the marketers have seized on what is a fairly minor plot point: One morning, Susan accidentally sets Frank's clock back 10 minutes instead of ahead, as she intended, causing him to be late and setting in motion a string of life-changing events. Yet much of what follows isn't so motivated by his being off-schedule.
The cast members twist themselves into knots trying to sell the story, Reynolds in particular. He is at his best as the slightly shallow charmer of the film's middle sections, and so he doesn't quite pull off the soulful depth of the man he is meant to become -- instead signifying his hard-won eccentric gravitas by wearing red socks with a dark suit. If only it were always so easy.
-- Mark Olsen
"Chaos Theory." PG-13 for thematic material, sexual conduct and language. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes. ArcLight, 6360 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 464-4226.
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Boxing doc has no punch
Although the built-in paradox of an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn (by way of Ukraine) becoming a professional boxer would seem like ideal documentary fodder, Jason Hutt's portrait of devout young pugilist Dmitriy Salita is surprisingly uninspired.
The problem lies chiefly with Salita, who, for better or for worse, lacks the sort of brash charisma and inner turmoil normally associated with boxers, which might have made him a more compelling subject. Despite his share of hardships (immigrant poverty, his mother's untimely death), the kindly and dedicated Salita, now 24, has enjoyed a fairly steady, conflict-free rise in his sport of choice; good for him, bad for building on-screen tension. Worse, Hutt keeps a too-respectful distance from Salita, avoiding any direct collision with the athlete and never really digging beneath his composed surface.
