This week in local theaters

TELL NO ONE To hear cynics tell it, you could translate a Matlock episode into French and critics would hoist it to their shoulders. With this French adaptation of a potboiler by American suspense writer Harlan Coben, I suspect the opposite is true: audiences are embracing this surprise summer hit (and to a lesser degree, the summer's earlier pair of polished French baubles, Priceless and Roman de gare) not because it's a familiar thing in fancy wrapping, but because it does that familiar thing unusually well—it's a skilled, satisfying formula thriller, of a kind Hollywood has bloated beyond enjoyment. In what would be the Harrison Ford role, minus the constipated scowl and bad haircut, François Cluzet plays a pediatrician who has all but recovered from his wife's murder eight years earlier—when suddenly a strange correspondence makes him think she might be alive. As the doctor dodges the police (who still think he's the killer) while eluding the clutches of two ruthless assassins, the casting of Cluzet, an empathetic everyman with appealingly lumpy features, really pays off: He makes the character's heroics more believable just by looking convincingly scared, desperate and out of ideas. (The highlight is a dynamite foot chase that gives The Bourne Ultimatum's mad dash through Morocco a run for its money.) And he's bolstered by a top-notch cast: Andre Dussolier as the wife's suspicious father, Marie-Jozée Croze from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as a mysterious brunette, Kristin Scott Thomas as a confidante, Francois Berléand (who's becoming the Jerry Orbach of Gallic cop roles) as a skeptical detective. Adapted and directed by French heartthrob Guillaume Canet (who appears as a slimy senator's son), the movie loses some of its credibility and character-derived tension as the plot takes over—especially near the end, where the villain all but lays out his scheme in a PowerPoint presentation—and you may wonder (not to give anything away) how a husband this devoted never thought to ask his wife how things were really going at work. But the movie, though gripping, never feels rushed: like Mathieu Chedid's eerie, echoey score, the pace seems measured to the hero's reawakened torment—a dull ache reactivated into sharp pain. In French with subtitles. —Jim Ridley (Opens Friday at The Belcourt)

HAMLET 2 Something is rotten in the state of Arizona, and director/co-writer Andrew Fleming (Dick, Nancy Drew) apparently thinks it's Tucson—the setting for this scattershot comedy about an effete, washed-up actor-cum-drama teacher trying to save his school's theater program. Set in five acts (just like Shakespeare's prequel), Hamlet 2 stars Steve Coogan as Dana Marschz, the teacher whose acting résumé includes a Jack LaLanne juicer infomercial, an episode of Xena and an ad for herpes treatment. Surrounded by people who don't believe in him—an acerbic wife (Catherine Keener) who wants a real child, not just the one she's married to; a teenage critic from the school paper who blasts his stage adaptation of Erin Brockovich—Marschz becomes convinced he can rescue drama from the chopping block by staging a sequel to Hamlet, replete with Jesus, a time machine and all those happy endings Shakespeare skimped on. The problem is, as far as big laughs go, the play's not just the thing, it's the only thing: The climactic "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" number is a sacrilicious hoot, but it comes after more than an hour of mostly witless attempts at racist, homophobic, blasphemous shock comedy. Still, there are moments from Amy Poehler (as ACLU lawyer Cricket Feldstein) and Elisabeth Shue (as herself) that provide mildly funny diversion from this too, too solid flesh. —Brent Rolen (Opens Friday)

THE ROCKER Directed by Peter Cattaneo, The Rocker's more or less the Pete Best Story—the tale of a poor bastard who gets shit-canned right on the brink of record-bin immortality. The film opens in Cleveland, mid-1980s, where Rainn Wilson's Robert "Fish" Fishman is behind the kit for Vesuvius, a metal band fronted by three head-bobbing, hair-waving morons (Will Arnett, Fred Armisen and Bradley Cooper) whose loyalty extends only to the dotted line. Told to either ditch their drummer or lose their deal, his bandmates choose the former, sending Fish into a tailspin from which he never recovers. Until decades later, that is, when he falls in with A.D.D., the high-school band for which his portly, pale nephew (Josh Gad) plays keyboard. Fish wins over the sulking, songwriting frontman (Teddy Geiger) and the brooding, scowling guitarist (Emma Stone), and they're signed and touring and sell-out famous within hours of making their inauspicious Interwebs debut. Sooner or later, they're forced to choose between opening for Vesuvius or busting up the band. A juvenile fairy tale that plays like the pilot for a Jonas Brothers sitcom on the Disney Channel, The Rocker comes off as something penned by an old dude who hasn't bought music since it was sold "on records," or ever met a music executive who wasn't a character in This Is Spinal Tap. This is sugary-sweet stuff—pop instead of rock. —Robert Wilonsky (Opens Friday)