DIPLOMACY
⋆⋆⋆ out of four stars • Unrated. • Theater: Edina.

German director Volker Schlöndorff (an Academy Award winner for 1979's World War II fantasy "The Tin Drum") moves to Paris in "Diplomacy," a dramatic account of the French capital's final days under Wehrmacht control. Even on the eve of its liberation, the City of Lights was about to be destroyed. Hitler delivered demolition orders to Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz, who set up explosives designed to reduce the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and much more to piles of rubble. "Diplomacy" spends one late August day at his headquarters in the Hôtel Meurice, as Swedish ambassador Raoul Nord­ling speaks tirelessly against the city's destruction. Niels Arestrup displays sharp intelligence as the iron-willed German commander, with André Dussollier inexhaustible as the courageous Swede. Their complex conversations are nonstop chess games as Nordling presses Von Choltitz to spare the city. Adapted from a stage production written by Cyril Gely, it feels more theatrical than cinematic, but its historic importance is adequate to hold viewers' attention.
COLIN COVERT

CITIZENFOUR
⋆⋆⋆ out of four stars
Unrated. • Theater: Uptown.

"Citizenfour" is a you-are-there portrait of Edward Snowden, traitor or privacy whistleblower, take your pick. Shot in 2013, it was filmed by director Laura Poitras as the NSA data research specialist met journalist Glenn Greenwald in a Hong Kong hotel. Their interviews were conducted to begin news reporting of Snowden's exposure of secret government surveillance programs tracking hundreds of millions of Americans' e-mails and phone calls. The conversations are detailed and dramatic in tone, though they don't reach the conspiracy drama crescendos of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' doomsday soundtrack. What the film delivers is several face-to-face meetings with Snowden as he thoroughly explains the government's metadata operations. It also features Gen. James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, lying under oath to Congress as he denies that any such data-collection exists. Snowden is not much of a camera-hungry performer. He wants to release the story without becoming the center of it. Whether you feel that his revelations damaged the ability to protect national safety, or that warrant-free eavesdropping should never allow intelligence officials to keep the public in the dark, this documentary offers plenty of fuel for a long, ongoing debate.
COLIN COVERT

ON ANY SUNDAY:  THE NEXT CHAPTER
⋆⋆½ out of four stars
Rating: PG for perilous action, some crashes and brief language use.
Theater: Brooklyn Center, Hastings, Oakdale Ultracinema, Shakopee.

"On Any Sunday" was the definitive "Sunday ride/Sunday race" motorcycle film. Released in 1971 by famed surf documentary pioneer Bruce Brown, it showed the broad expanse of the motorcycling experience in the America of that time, from serious racers to enthusiasts like movie star Steve McQueen. "On Any Sunday: The Next Chapter," is an updating of that film by Brown's veteran filmmaker son, Dana. It goes global, capturing dirt-track racing in California, motocross, MotoGP track racing, kids getting hooked early, Vietnamese using bikes as trucks and Africans revolutionizing malaria diagnosis and treatment with the aid of two-wheelers. Brown skips to so many places, profiles so many racers in so many divisions of cycle racing, that "Next Chapter" feels rushed, the briefest of overviews of the state of motorcycling. The whole affair feels slicker, less DIY, less outlaw than the bikers and races of Brown's father's film. But Brown still manages to deliver a fun, enticing documentary that reminds us that we never really grow out of our first taste of travel independence, our mastery of vehicles on two wheels or our love of controlling that much power and danger in a small package.
ROGER MOORE, Orlando Sentinel

REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS
⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rating: R for strong violence including a sexual assault, pervasive language, some drug use and sexual content.
Theater: Mall of America.

Bloody, brutal and melodramatic, "Revenge of the Green Dragons" is a straight-up gang war thriller about the rise of Chinese gangs in 1980s Flushing, N.Y. Its release is "presented" by Martin Scorsese. "Inspired by a true story," the movie follows a child smuggled into the United States in the early 1980s, enslaved washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant and eventually caught and coerced into joining one of the Asian gangs fighting to control Queens. Co-directors Wai-keung Lau and Andrew Loo tell the story totally from an insider's point of view. The cops and F.B.I. agents (Ray Liotta) are too racist to care much about the gangs smuggling in a flood of Chinese illegals and the accompanying drugs and violence. This is Chinese-on-Chinese violence, gruesome eye-for-an-eye stuff. Colorful early scenes capture the terror of children hunted by gangsters, the awful beatings the kids endure before they're initiated. Later scenes descend into the trite, gory and predictable conventions of such movies — betrayal, the deaths of those close to the hero, laughably arch, fortune-cookie speeches. "There's a storm coming, detective. And I don't know any umbrella that's gonna keep this city dry!" This would work better if you thought the writers and directors were in on the joke.
ROGER MOORE, Orlando Sentinel