It can sometimes be a little too easy to overlook the angst and inner turmoil of children, especially when the adults around them are dealing with their own anguish. And in much the same way that small conflicts can snowball into greater political wars (often at the expense of innocent bystanders), troubled adolescents can sometimes go to great extremes to get revenge on those they feel have acted unjustly.

Mikael Persbrandt as Anton and Trine Dyrholm as Marianne Photo by Per Arnesen, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

It is this type of conflict that is at the heart of the two overlapping plots of In a Better World. Originally titled Hævnen, this Danish film draws parallels between the life of Anton (Mikael Perbrandt), a doctor who spends much of his time away from home treating Sudanese refugees in a makeshift village hospital, and his son Elias (Markus Rygaard), who has recently befriended a new kid at school named Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen). While Anton is dealing with the victims of a relentless warlord, who rapes young women and maims their children at his will, Elias is dealing with bullies of a different kind who call him names and pick on him because of his buck teeth.

Christian, a troubled kid who moves to Denmark from London after his mother losses her battle with cancer, develops a bond with Elias that quickly goes from Stand by Me-like innocence to Heavenly Creatures-like scariness after Christian violently fends off the biggest bully with a knife and bicycle pump.

After Anton (upon his return home) is embarrassed in front of the boys when a minor altercation with another local father becomes unnecessarily aggressive, Christian and Elias secretly come up with a Columbine-like plot to get back at the man whom they feel shamed Anton. Meanwhile, when Anton (already dealing with a marriage on the brink of divorce) returns to Africa, he is faced with a huge conflict when the the warlord responsible for all the pain and death he has been treating shows up with a leg injury in need of treatment.

With all these fires being stoked, and with everyone involved dealing with other moral and emotional conflicts, it doesn’t take long for violence to erupt on every front, with everyone involved left to pick up the pieces as best they can. And by juxtaposing the frightening similarities between the consequences of each characters’ actions, In a Better World shows just how close humanity can often be to self-inflicted disaster.

With moving performances by the entire cast, it is apparent why In a Better World has earned so many accolades (including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film). With a previous limited release in New York and Los Angeles, In a Better World opens to wider American audiences this week.

In a Better World. Directed by Susanne Bier. Starring Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm and Ulrich Thomsen. Rated R. www.sonyclassics.com/inabetterworld.

Review by Jonathan Williams

Just as the original Scream trilogy reinvented the horror genre in part by spoofing the ’80s slasher flicks that preceded it, Scre4m uses equally clever techniques and cameos to revitalize the franchise for a new generation. And with the horror genre having changed since Scream‘s mid ’90s debut, the rules played by the film’s characters have also changed a little. With new fodder, including recent trends such as the Saw franchise, newer communication techniques such as Facebook and Twitter, the rash of horror remakes of the past few years and even the first three Scream films, director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson are clearly back in their element with this new film.

Set 15 years after the original Scream killings, Scre4m finds Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returning to Woodsboro to promote her empowering self-help book. But it turns out she’s not the only one who has been overcoming the horrific events that inspired her to write the book. Now a local celebrity, it’s not long before Sidney is reunited with Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) and reporter-turned-author Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) to figure out who is killing the friends of Sidney’s teenage cousin Jill (Emma Roberts).

From the infamous Ghostface costume to the town’s obsession with the events of the first three movies (and the ridiculous series of Stab movies they’ve inspired), Scre4m is constantly poking fun at itself and bringing the audience along for one inside joke after another. And the suspense builds as it becomes more and more clear that the killer is obviously in the midst of those being killed, causing everyone from cocky ex-boyfriends to Sidney herself to become suspects. But when it comes time for the climactic twist that has become a staple of the Scream series, the rules have changed ever so slightly yet again, allowing for more than one surprise as the mystery unravels.

Scre4m. Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Emma Roberts. Rated R. www.scream-4.com.

Review by Jonathan Williams

With his latest animated adventure, director Carlos Saldanha gets to leave the Ice Age and return to his homeland of Brazil in Rio. And as you might expect, this colorful land provides for an animated adventure just as big as the prehistoric creatures from his previous movies.

Rio follows the story of Blu, thought to be the world’s last blue macaw, who is exported by villainous animal smugglers to the faraway land of Minnesota before he is even old enough to fly. There, he is raised by a bookstore owner, leading a comfortably domesticated life of hot chocolate and other pamperings with no recollection of his more exotic birthplace. Voiced in an appropriately dweeby manner by The Social Network‘s Jesse Eisenberg, Blu is transported back to Rio when a scientist shows up with news that there is also a surviving female blue macaw, hoping the two will hit it off and prevent the extinction of their species.

Arriving in Rio de Janeiro just before the onset of Carnivale, Blu’s journey quickly becomes a Busby Berkeley-like jungle jaunt in which he and Jewel, the female blue  macaw voiced by Anne Hathaway, evade capture by smugglers and scientists while traversing wild terrain and parade floats. The fact that Blu is a bit of an ugly duckling in Rio (even as an adult bird, he has still never learned to fly) definitely causes some complications. But with the help of a toucan voiced by George Lopez, a drooling bulldog voiced by Tracy Morgan, a cardinal voiced by will.i.am and a canary voiced by Jamie Foxx, Blu and Jewel are able to stay one step ahead of Nigel, a bitter cockatoo doing the smugglers’ dirty work alongside his gang of marmosets.

Like the Ice Age movies, Rio is silly enough to entertain kids, yet clever enough for adults to enjoy. And as a bonus, the movie is preceded by an Ice Age short called Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up, which is sort of sneak peek at next year’s Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Rio. Directed by Carlos Saldanha. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway and Leslie Mann. Rated G. www.rio-themovie.com.

Review by Jonathan Williams

Ray Stevenson as Danny Greene

Before taking on the mythical role of Volstagg in the sure-to-be-hit Thor later this year, Ray Stevenson portrays a more recent historical figure in Jonathan Hensleigh’s Kill the Irishman. Based on the true story of Danny Greene, a 1970s antihero credited with taking down Cleveland’s crime syndicate and crippling the  nation’s mob scene, Kill the Irishman features a stellar cast including Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, Vincent D’Onofrio and Stevenson in the starring role. And although they all do a great job of portraying the vile nature of everyone involved in the infamous turf war that resulted in numerous bombings during the summer of 1976, it doesn’t keep the story from becoming slightly confusing at times.

But with all the backstabbing and politics involved, it would be difficult to tell the story accurately without it being a little convoluted. From union leaders and cops to loan sharks and hitmen, everyone in Kill the Irishman resorts to heinous tactics, Greene included. But what sets him and his Irish-American cohorts apart from the clearly villainous mobsters is that, in the end, Greene is ultimately trying to create a better world for those he cares about, even though his tactics often bring them emotional distress and physical harm.

Danny Greene and his crew prepare to clean up the neighborhood

Like a cross between Robin Hood and the Punisher (a role Stevenson played in 2008’s Punisher: War Zone), the charismatic Greene tries to provide for his family, his neighborhood and his kinsmen the only way he knows how. With claims that he is descended from Celtic warriors, it just so happens that violence is usually the only way this tough guy knows how to resolve a conflict. Greene becomes a modern-day folk hero as he evades multiple attempts on his life and gets the best of the mafia (the luck o’ the Irish is clearly on his side), the police and everyone else involved in this gangland war.

Loan shark Shondor Birns (Christopher Walken) and Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson) doing business

Like every other character in Kill the Irishman, Hensleigh and Stevenson do an effective job of establishing that Greene is not a good guy. But, during one of the film’s most important moments, an old woman of Irish descent tells Greene that there’s a little good in all Irishmen. And in the end, that proves to be true of Greene, as he ends the mafia’s stranglehold on Cleveland despite employing many of their own heartless tactics.

Kill the Irishman. Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh. Starring Ray Stevenson and Vincent D’Onofrio. Rated R. www.killtheirishmanmovie.com.

Review by Jonathan Williams