Salvation Boulevard (2011)

Kinnear now plays Carl Vanderveer, a former pot-smoking Grateful Dead follower who has become a reformed member of a church. The glitzy preacher is Dan Day (Brosnan), who uses Carl as an example of a "miracle." Carl has also landed a pretty, but uptight wife (Jennifer Connelly), who comes complete with an ex-military father (Ciarán Hinds), and a wise daughter, Angie (Isabelle Fuhrman). Carl usually appears a little bewildered and absent, except when he meets a fellow former Deadhead in security guard Honey Foster (Marisa Tomei).

Trouble begins when Dan debates a scholarly atheist, Dr. Paul Blaylock (Ed Harris), and is invited back to his office for a chat. Dan brings Carl along. During the chat, Dan accidentally fires Blaylock's antique gun and hits Blaylock. Panicking, Dan puts the gun in Blaylock's hand, sending Carl into a tizzy of guilt and panic. Sensing his cover may be blown, Dan begins a campaign to blame Carl for the deed. But even deeper forces are at work.

Director George Ratliff is primarily known for the memorable documentary Hell House (2001), and also for his thriller Joshua (2007). He has a sense for the spiritual and the spiritually absurd, and he seems to have his head in the game. He relishes the religious conversations going on in the movie, the lively debates about the existence of God and whatnot, and he's smart enough to present these through the characters, rather than through his own cinematic omnipotence. What the movie could use, however, is a more Lubitsch-like grace in juggling this many characters and ridiculous plotlines.

But that's OK. Who can hate Salvation Boulevard when you have Marisa Tomei's beautiful, stoned ex-hippie (dig the way she adds "man" to the end of her sentences)? And what about Jennifer Connelly, who lightens up and gets funny for the first time since Career Opportunities (1991)? (Since she won her Oscar, she has had a long series of stodgy, dreary dramas.) Harris is wonderful, almost completely disguised behind beard and glasses, and Hinds is appropriately shifty. But it's that Kinnear-Brosnan team that makes me especially happy. I hope they get to hang out a lot more often in the future.