The Promised Land

UNA NOCHE (B) - Three frustrated, disaffected youths in bustling, grimy Havana weave their lives together and grow desperate enough to build a raft and try to paddle their way to Miami and salvation.

Lucy Malloy's drama has the gritty realism of a documentary, and the three appealing lead characters -- Lila (Anailin de la Rua de la Torre), her brother Elio (Javier Nunez Florian) and his fast-food co-worker Raul (Dariel Arrechaga) -- work well together. Lila suffers insults from other young women, Raul hustles to score HIV meds for his prostitute mother, and Elio may secretly harbor a crush on Raul, who definitely has a crush on Lila.

The film meanders around the filthy streets of Havana for quite a while, as Malloy takes her time building up her trio to that point of desperation. These kids seem to have no future (judging by the dire straits of their elders), and they dream of a brighter life in America. The actual trip across the Gulf is neither epic nor mundane, as each of their issues comes to a head

The result is heartfelt and moving.

ELYSIUM (D+) - This futuristic fable has been taken seriously by so many critics that I was shocked to find that it is unbearable idiotic pap. It's a joke of a movie in which Matt Damon goes Robocop in his dying days on the elites and their utopia on behalf of the masses left huddled in dystopian LA.

This film faded in my memory almost instantly. What has stuck with me is the hilarious accents on display. Jodie Foster runs Elysium, the spa in the sky for the rich, where every illness is magically cured and lawns are forever manicured. Foster looks like Christine Lagarde and speaks like a British schoolmarm, for some reason. One of the bad guys sports an odd Scottish accent. And one of Latino freedom fighters assisting Damon mumbles most of his lines.

Alice Braga suffers through a role as a noble minority with a dying daughter. Braga's Frey was childhood pals with Damon's Max, and little Max is about as Opie and dopey and soapie as you can get in amber flashbacks. Will the brave white man -- racing against time, with only days to live due to a radiation exposure at his heartless workplace but energized by a body contraption plugged into his brain -- win the battle against the evil powers and save that little girl's life before he coughs out his last breath?

I fast-forwarded a bit to get through this two-hour clunker and find out, but whaddya know, I guessed right.