Box Office: The Place Beyond, The Terror Live, Snowpiercer

The Place Beyond the Pines

Crime. Drama. Directed by Derek Cianfrance

Opened Aug. 1

Motorcycle stunt rider Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) works in a traveling act for state fairs, barely makes ends meet. During the fair in New York, Glanton gets a visit from his ex-lover Romina (Eva Mendes) who recently gave birth to his son. Glanton quits his job as a stuntman to stay in town to provide for his family, but turns to robbing banks. This puts him on a collision course with ambitious rookie cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), who is looking to quickly move up the ranks in a police department riddled with corruption. While Cross chases down Glanton, they get in a gunfight and Glanton dies. The sweeping drama unfolds over 15 years as the two high school boys find out their fathers’ tragedy. 

The Terror Live

Crime. Directed by Kim Byung-woo.

Opened Aug. 1

Due to an unsavory incident, star anchor Yoon Young-hwa (Ha Jung-woo) is pulled from the TV news and is now hosting a radio show. One day during his live show, Yoon receives a phone call threatening to blow up a bridge in Seoul. At first, he takes it as a joke and tells the terrorist to proceed, but soon he realizes that the threat is real. Realizing this could be his one chance to get back to being a newscaster, Yoon broadcasts the phone call with the terrorist live on TV, unaware that the situation is about to quickly take a turn for the worse.

Snowpiercer

Action. Sci-fi. Thriller. Directed by Bong Joon-ho.

Opened Aug. 1

Based on the French novel “Le Transperceneige” by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, the film is set in a future where a failed global-warming experiment has killed off almost all living things on Earth with the sudden onset of an Ice Age. Survivors live on the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine. As time passes, a class system evolves on the train: The elites inhabit the carriages in the front while the poor stay in the tail section. Those in the back start a revolution, attempting to kill the dictator Wilford (Ed Harris) and seize control of the engine, which the train’s elite considers “sacred.” 

The Wolverine

Action. Sci-fi. Directed by James Mangold.

Opened July 25

Sometime after the events of “X-Men: The Last Stand,” Logan (Hugh Jackman) is tormented by guilt and sorrow from the loss of his loved ones. He travels to Japan, where he meets an old acquaintance and becomes embroiled in a conflict that forces him to confront his own demons. Pushed to his physical and emotional limits, Wolverine faces a fight to the death with a samurai as well as an inner struggle with his own immortality. 

RED 2

Action. Comedy. Crime. Directed by Dean Parisot.

Opened July 18

While trying to enjoy a normal life, retired black-ops CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is notified by his old friend Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) that Interpol is hunting him. When Frank tries to clear his name, he becomes involved in a global mission to track down a missing nuclear device that was sneaked into Russia and reassembled. While Frank reunites his former team of elite operatives and is working on the mission, he finds himself hunted by Victoria (Helen Mirren) and one of the best assassins in the business, Han (Lee Byung-hun). 

(sheren6735@heraldcorp.com)