fb-pixelOn Demand movie highlights - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

On Demand movie highlights

Jarhead ★ ★ ½

(Showtime on Comcast) Ex-Marine Anthony Swofford’s controversial memoir of the 1991 Gulf War has been turned into a muddled account of soldiers coming to terms with their own obsolescence. The final act is powerful and original; everything before feels borrowed from other, better war movies. Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard do decent work but only Jamie Foxx comes across as an actual Marine. Directed by Sam Mendes (”American Beauty”). (R; runs through Aug. 31) Ty Burr

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues ★ ★ ½

(Comcast Movie Collections: Just In) Of course it’s a disappointment — how could it not be? — but this sloppy, strained sequel to the 2004 idiot masterpiece occasionally breaks through to realms of blissful comic Dada. Will Ferrell is back as blowhard newsman Ron Burgundy, but it’s Steve Carell’s Brick Tamland who’s the holy moron of this franchise. (PG-13; runs through Sept. 4) Ty Burr

In the Line of Fire ★ ★ ★

(Encore on Comcast) Clint Eastwood brings off his follow-up to “Unforgiven” with squinty style and rumpled panache, playing a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent haunted by the belief that he could have saved JFK in Dallas in 1963. He has a wonderful adversary in John Malkovich, a snakelike CIA-trained assassin who plans to kill the current president and regularly phones to taunt Eastwood with the latter’s secret nightmare. Wolfgang Petersen directed this smart, slick thriller. (R; runs through Sept. 30)