Usher's New Boxing Flick Hits Portland

The Portland Film Festival kicks off this week with some graphic sheep birth scenes and time-travelers. But if indie flicks aren't your thing, Usher is here to save the day with Hands of Stone, which looks terrible but also has a very big budget.

OPENING THIS WEEK

Don't Breathe

A trio of Detroit burglars named Money, Rocky and…Alex meet their match when they target a blind, rich veteran and end up trapped in his home. Screened after deadline, but from the Cannes buzz, we hear that Detroit looks stereotypically apocalyptic, the thieves look out of place and very white, and director Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) should've left out the turkey baster from his gritty horror. Rated R. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Oak Grove, Vancouver.

Equity

[ C ] A sleek romantic thriller set on Wall Street, Equity pointedly reverses traditional gender roles—Anna Gunn plays the bigwig staving off her younger rival, and James Purefoy plays the beau fatale sleeping his way toward lucrative insider info—and carries itself like prestige TV while betraying all the faults of the dreariest network soap. By delving into the fixed low-interest business of financial manipulation without any evident care for suspense or humor, the film clearly wants us to appreciate the high-minded seriousness of its all-female creative team. But good intentions cannot overcome lackluster characters, stilted dialogue and narrative doldrums. Women consumed by single-minded avarice still make the same self-important, and ultimately disposable, festival fodder as their male counterparts. Greed is good; Equity's just lazy. Rated PG. By JAY HORTON. Clackamas.

Hands of Stone

People are still making boxing movies? Yes, people like Robert De Niro and Usher. Edgar Ramirez stars as the hotheaded Roberto Durán, an anti-American Panamanian prizefighter who pairs up with a heroic, septuagenarian coach played by De Niro. Cue the sleazy managers, training montages and machismo love story. For fans of Creed (the Rocky movie and the Tallahassee band). Everyone else, stick with Rocky. Not screened for critics. Rated R. Fox Tower.

The Measure of a Man

[ A- ] The economy is in the gutter and the world doesn't give a shit about anyone. These grating sentiments are reflected in Stéphane Brizé's The Measure of a Man, a film defined by our current era of career paranoia and detachment. Our hero, Thierry (spectacularly played by Vincent Lindon), searches for work after being let go by a high-paying employer. With a persistently furrowed brow, he faces endless challenges that place his dignity into question while seeking financial support for his family. As cathartic as a drunken sing-along to Elliott Smith, Brizé's film is a beautifully painful tale of moral desperation in which people are expendable and money is everything. Not Rated. By CODY DEAN. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Saturday and 4:30 pm Sunday, Aug. 27-28.

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