the best of the rest

Capsules by Michael Sragow. Full reviews are at baltimoresun.com/movies.

Frozen River : *** ( 3 STARS) This solid, satisfying, ruthlessly character-driven thriller focuses an unblinking eye on the fraying lives of Native Americans and struggling whites living in and around the Mohawk Reservation on the New York-Canada border. It creates a charged emotional atmosphere in which you feel anything can happen. As a working-class mother who smuggles illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River, Melissa Leo brings a ferocious brusqueness to a downward-spiraling character and is never less than galvanic. R 97 minutes

Ghost Town: **** ( 3 STARS) Ricky Gervais plays a misanthropic dentist who finds himself falling head-first for a brainy, beautiful Egyptologist (Tea Leoni) after the ghost of her dead husband (Greg Kinnear) enlists him to prevent her second marriage. Director David Koepp and his ace ensemble put over a tender yet hilarious vision of loved ones unconsciously using their own unresolved feelings to summon their dear and departed - leading to a New York City overrun with specters. And Gervais gives it all a rich, bittersweet center. PG-13 102 minutes

I Served the King of England: **** ( 3 STARS) A randy Czech waiter with a gift for garnishing dishes (including his lovers) hones his talents during the rise of the Third Reich and keeps practicing them while Hitler annexes the Sudetenland and then takes all of Czechoslovakia. He comes to be the worst kind of escapist: the kind who diddles while his country burns. The brilliance of the film is that it consistently makes its points through comedy. R 120 minutes

The Lucky Ones: *** ( 3 STARS) Rachel McAdams, Michael Pena and Tim Robbins play Iraq war soldiers who join forces to face the confusions of the home front. The movie has its own emotional sorcery. In a raw, humorous way, it grasps how hope and desperation spur magical thinking and, sometimes, real magic. McAdams is glorious as a woman who is as tough and scrappy as she is emotionally open, and Robbins acts with rare subtlety as a man whose life turns upside down just when he hopes to take it easy. R 113 minutes.