Weapons

Zach Cregger cuts the film into chapters and rewinds to the same night in each. Seventeen children in Maybrook leave their homes at 2.17 a.m. and vanish; that hour is then lived again through someone else. The explanation is withheld a long time, but it arrives and is stated plainly. Cregger names his own sources: Magnolia, Prisoners and Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. He sat down to write it to work through his grief after the death of his friend Trevor Moore, from Whitest Kids U’ Know. When the script went out, New Line took it with a 38 million dollar package covering production and salaries, and Universal came in 7 million dollars lower. Cregger took 10 million dollars as writer, director and producer, plus final cut. The film has passed 270 million dollars worldwide. Amy Madigan, who plays Gladys, won the Oscar for actress in a supporting role at the 98th Academy Awards; her first nomination in that category came in 1986 for Twice in a Lifetime. A good fit if you take the same night repeated from one angle after another as the shape of the film rather than lost momentum. Not for you if the long build around missing children, and violence that turns comic without warning, sit badly.