On Demand picks

August 09, 2011

GREEN ZONE ** (Max on Comcast) At the start of the Iraq invasion, Chief Warrant Officer Matt Damon races around Baghdad looking for weapons of mass destruction. He finds none, and spends the rest of the movie hunting down the liars. We know how this turns out, which is part of the trouble: The movie is so obvious in its righteousness. The director, Paul Greengrass, keeps things moving, but the film’s political cartoonishness doesn’t suit his docu-realist sophistication. (R; runs through Aug. 25) WESLEY MORRIS

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VAN WILDER **½ (Showtime on Comcast) Ryan Reynolds is the best thing about this college-set comedy about a good-natured slacker who champions underdogs from nerdy virgins to dumb jocks. Reynolds brings a John Cusack-in-“Say Anything’’ underachiever’s charm to the expected toilet humor and the frat-house hijinks. (R; runs through Aug. 23)

DANCES WITH WOLVES ***½ (Max on Comcast) A great western, extraordinary in its heartfelt determination to set the record straight about Indians and our dealing with them, in this case a Sioux tribe, befriended by an unusually open US Cavalry officer played by Kevin Costner, who also makes a remarkable directing debut. (PG-13; runs through Aug. 25)

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