We meet Liam Neeson’s character, a heartbroken loner named John Ottway, on the verge of suicide and thinking back, obsessively, to the woman who got away.

You can say this for screenwriter Pablo F. Fenjves’ story: It stays busy. It starts in the hotel, moves to the ledge and then swoops back into a one-month-earlier flashback, explaining how Nick got there, why he went to prison in the first place and how he managed to turn a furlough for his father’s funeral into an opportunity for escape.

The focus is on a fictional group of men stationed at Ramitelli Airfield. Hard-drinking squadron leader “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker) is the by-the-book contrast to his best friend, the Jedi whiz of the bunch, Joe “Lightning” Little (David Oyelowo).

Director Steven Soderbergh had an idea to showcase the serious, muscly agility of Women’s Mixed Martial Arts star Gina Carano, without a lot of digital this or stunt-double that. Early in the picture, special operative Mallory Kane, played by Carano, is being set up for a double-cross and suspects as much.

Assembled from spare parts of Footloose and Sister Act, the serviceable gospel contraption Joyful Noise takes place in an economically hard-hit Georgia town, where the multiracial members of the Divinity Church Choir raise voices and spirits under the direction of their beloved choirmaster, played by Kris Kristofferson.

Playing a reformed cargo smuggler sucked back into the game, Mark Wahlberg is the star of Contraband, a fairly entertaining remake of the 2008 Icelandic thriller Reykjavik-Rotterdam.

Please be silent behind the screen. Backstage at the 1927 Hollywood premiere of his latest screen triumph, film star George Valentin — played with irresistible zest by Jean Dujardin — waits for the crowd’s response. Standing in front of the sign shushing the backstagers, he hears the applause. We only see it, The Artist being a silent film (or nearly) whose story begins in the late silent era.

While I enjoyed the 2009 Guy Ritchie reinvention of the fabled detective in Sherlock Holmes, applying the same formula in this newer film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows proved more a boring, tedious exercise in special effects and self-conscious filmmaking and less an engaging and narratively ingenious film.

On the surface, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher might not seem like a good subject for a biopic. She wasn’t flamboyant, there’s no romantic back-story, and she was more known for her steel will than her diplomacy. In these politically charged times, however, The Iron Lady.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, a longtime fan of the source material, The Adventures of Tintin begins with a gorgeous animated credit sequence, deftly incorporating bits of the narrative about to unfold. It’s as nifty as the overture in Spielberg’s earlier Catch Me If You Can, both scored, with a glancing touch, by his longtime mood generator, composer John Williams. It’s always gratifying to hear what Williams can do when he’s not in attack mode.