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'Absolution'

Liam Neeson plays a Boston mob enforcer with memory problems in his latest tough-guy tale, "Absolution." The 72-year-old actor has said that he's looking to wind down the action career that kicked off in 2008 with "Taken," and it feels like with each new entry he's starting to say goodbye to his own particular subgenre. "Absolution" makes it easy. Scripted by Tony Gayton, "Absolution" marks a reunion for Neeson with his "Cold Pursuit" director, Hans Petter Moland. But while that film, about a snowplow driver seeking revenge for his son's death, had a certain bonkers, Coen brothers-esque dark comedic energy, "Absolution" is more of a dirge, a funereal B-movie riff on Christopher Nolan's "Memento," that tries to be "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" but ends up falling short.

'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever'

There's no shortage of seasonal films that claim to extol "the true meaning of Christmas," and this year, the holiday comes early with Dallas Jenkins' "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," based on the 1972 novel by Barbara Robinson. But whether or not you'll be excited to receive this one under the tree may depend on your tolerance for precocious kiddos and faith-based stories that come wrapped up as wacky family comedies. Adapted by Platte Clark, Darin McDaniel and Ryan Swanson, Robinson's book was also made into a 1983 TV movie starring Fairuza Balk, and Jenkins leans into the 1970s and 1980s nostalgia, making this film a period piece. Narrated by Beth (Lauren Graham), her recounting of a story from childhood serves as the voice-over for the film. As far as family-friendly, faith-based holiday movies go, you could do worse than "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," though it might not quite connect with all young audiences, as the film leans more toward poignant than playfully riotous. However, we could all stand to remember that Christmas is about so much more than pageantry and that the roots of these rituals come from stories of togetherness and charity. It never hurts to be reminded of that.

'Heretic'

If "A Quiet Place" — the screenplay that put writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods on the map — was a rather tight-lipped, high-concept monster movie, "Heretic," their latest film, which they wrote and directed, is the opposite. This is a talky chamber piece of philosophical face-offs, though the outcomes remain just as harrowing. But the danger of "Heretic" is not anything extraterrestrial, but rather the most mundane of earthly predators: a man. And what a man Beck and Woods have cast in their religious horror flick, effectively weaponizing the befuddled British charm of one Mr. Hugh Grant. The genius of his performance in "Heretic" is that his manner is no different in this horror film than in romantic comedies; it's just the nature of the conversation — and what he'd like to do with women — that's different. "Heretic," as a lecture on faith and ethics gone awry. If there's anything we take away from this tale, it's not that faith is bad, or good, but that it exists in the eye of the beholder. The only thing worth believing in is yourself.

— Tribune News Service