En el Séptimo Día (2017, Jim McKay) (Patreon)

61/100

Dude deserves a rest, frankly. McKay sets the plot in motion almost immediately but devotes the film's first third or so to a whirlwind tour of Brooklyn neighborhoods, as well as the wide variety of crappy jobs held by undocumented Mexican immigrants (including mopping up a sex shop's porno viewing booths, which I'm surprised to learn still exist). It's much more formally confident than his earlier work—startlingly so, really—but doesn't sacrifice his trademark humane verisimilitude, e.g. José checking in with a friend who cuts flowers at a bodega and then buying a single aspirin tablet on the way out, so as not to get him in trouble with the owner. (He probably needs the aspirin, too.) The movie flags a bit in the middle, as José continues not to tell his teammates/friends about his dilemma, an act of pointless cowardice that feels increasingly contrived; it also goes disappointingly soft at the very end (that's what she said), serving up a clichéd last-second sports outcome and then more or less ignoring the long-term ramifications of José's decision, as if they'd never been worth fretting over in the first place. For the most part, though, McKay's touch is gratifyingly light—discussing how to handle the NYPD, one of the crew sardonically warns "They don't like it when you make them run"—and the third act, which sees José sensibly choose his delivery-bike job over the big game but repeatedly suit up and score a quick goal as teammates and even spectators keep calling his restaurant and ordering take-out in order to get him to the field, works both as grim metaphor and kinetic spectacle. Kinda wish they'd digitally replaced the lead actor's fade, though, which now makes him look alt-right.

[Available on MUBI for the next three weeks or so.]