Mentoring

THE BOX (B+) - From Mexico comes this quiet affecting story of a teenager who thinks he has found the father who abandoned him long ago. It is a cautionary tale about the perils of mentoring the younger generations.

Hatzin (Hatzin Navarrete) leaves Mexico City for a small town to retrieve a box that, he is told, contains the remains of his father. But as he's getting on the bus to head back home, he spots a man on the street and is convinced that the man is his father, based on a picture he has seen. 

That man, who goes by Mario (Hernan Mendoza) runs an employment service that helps staff factories, although he is scaling up to start up his own factory. Either way, he regularly exploits workers, including a young woman who eventually goes missing after speaking up for her rights. Director Lorenzo Vigas conveys volumes through sparse dialogue and dazzles with the broad vistas he splays across the screen.

Mario hires on Hatzin, and they develop an uneasy rapport. At one point, Mario seems to let on that he really is Hatzin's long-lost father, but you can't be sure that he isn't doing that merely to deceive and exploit the boy. Meantime, Hatzin -- a naif who was raised by his grandmother -- slowly becomes hardened, culminating in an unspeakable act. Like father, like son, sadly.

ROGER DODGER (2002) (A-minus) - Perhaps the cinematic equivalent of doing a line of cocaine, this black comedy features an arrogant playboy taking his teenage nephew out on the town in New York City to school the boy in the art of slaying the ladies. Of course, Roger is mostly talk and doesn't necessarily wield all the skills he brags about.

Campbell Scott is riveting as the clever, loquacious Roger, who happens to be the boy-toy of his boss, the older Joyce (Isabella Rossellini), at the advertising agency where he flashes his skills. Roger has the verbal dexterity not only of a manipulative ad man but also of the slickest hustler. The opening scene -- Roger and his colleagues, including Joyce, bantering fiercely around a restaurant table -- is a master class in dialogue writing, courtesy of Dylan Kidd, who would never recapture the magic of his feature debut as writer-director.

The secret weapon here is the nephew, Nick, also played with verbal nimbleness by Jesse Eisenberg, in his big-screen debut. Nick has never had a girlfriend, and he is looking to his uncle for some inside dope on the dating game. Roger, caught off guard at first by the unannounced visit, dives into the exercise with vigor and not a little vulgarity. Roger is a know-it-all who savors the opportunity to impart his wisdom to the next generation of cads.

They meet two women on the prowl for the evening, Sophie (Jennifer Beals) and Andrea (Elizabeth Berkley), who roll their eyes at Roger but are charmed by innocent little Nick. Both sides will score points in the battle of the sexes. Meantime, Joyce moves to dump Roger, unleashing a pandora's box of his insecurities.  

While the sexual politics here can seem a bit corny to the modern sensibility, the film does not come across as dated on its 20th anniversary. It's just as entertaining as it was back then, eons ago. There is no denying the sizzle among Scott, Beals, Berkley and Eisenberg and the simmer of Rossellini. (Also, look for a very young Morena Bacarrin ("Deadpool," Showtime's "Homeland") in an early scene, batting away Roger's advances.) And Kidd's script is endlessly inventive, the one-liners sharp and believable. 

You'll know from that opening scene if it's your cup of tea or whether you might want to leave this one confined to the bar scene of the gloomy past.