CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS

Those who hold fast that Brian Cox's eerily unshowy few minutes as Hannibal Lecter in "Manhunter" trump Anthony Hopkins' subsequent star turns will see some of the same unforced, mesmerizing calm in his lead role as a lifer-with-a-plan in the prison film "The Escapist."

As Frank Perry, an institutionalized soul who finds a redemptive reason to bust out when he learns that his drug-abusing daughter is at death's door, Cox shows a wily, well-tested faith in the power of opaque stillness and taciturn authority to suggest emotional depth. It makes for an unexpectedly welcome form of dramatic escape: the character study breaking free from a hoary old movie genre. Cox's strong center also allows us to enjoy guilt-free the chewier elements around him: assembling the escape team, the violent prison fight, director/ co-writer Rupert Wyatt's arty time-shifting structure and Damian Lewis' delectably menacing behind-bars kingpin. (The solid cast also includes Joseph Fiennes and Liam Cunningham.)

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As a first-time filmmaker, Wyatt takes awhile to reconcile his more self-consciously metaphysical flourishes with the audience-friendly rudiments of an escape flick, but eventually the psychological and physical grittiness becomes a coalescing power. By the end, that Leonard Cohen song that felt like a pretentious touch at the beginning, feels earned.

-- Robert Abele "The Escapist." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes. At Laemmle Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-3500.

This 'Kiss' has a lingering effect

That the French famously take emotions seriously allows them to become masters of romantic comedy. A case in point is Emmanuel Mouret's scintillating yet poignant "Shall We Kiss?" It is classical in form yet fresh and spontaneous. Émilie (Julie Gayet), a fabric saleswoman on business in Nantes, has a chance encounter with Gabriel (Michaël Cohen). They share a pleasant evening, but when Gabriel leans over to kiss Émilie, she withdraws -- and tells him a story to explain why.

It seems that a young Paris mathematics professor, Nicolas (played by Mouret), is feeling love-starved and confides in his best friend since high school, Judith (Virginie Ledoyen), who is married to Claudio (Stefano Accorsi). After much discussion, Judith agrees to let Nicolas kiss her.

The moral here is, of course, that you can never know until afterward whether a kiss' impact will prove to be big or little. Not surprisingly, Nicolas and Judith's kiss proves volcanic. Since they are highly civilized people, once they realize how fully they have fallen in love, they become greatly concerned with not hurting Claudio. Trouble -- or worse -- surely lies ahead, but in the getting there and back again to Émilie and Gabriel, Mouret reveals himself to be a filmmaker who is not merely clever or inspired but wise and humane in the finest tradition of the French cinema.

-- Kevin Thomas "Shall We Kiss?" MPAA rating: Unrated. In French with English subtitles. In selected theaters.