Right away, hindsight emerges as the key theme of Poker Night — namely, its inherent benefit to sizing up one’s condition and circumstance … albeit well after needed. It’s an apt topic because I suspect the plot of Greg Francis’ twisty crime thriller wouldn’t hold up to the scrutiny of a second viewing.

But why worry about that when the first ride is fun?

Baby-faced police detective Jeter (Beau Mirchoff, The Grudge 3) recalls the advice of older, wiser cops when he’s caught in a sticky situation after trying to rescue a pretty girl (Halston Sage, 2014’s Neighbors): He’s Tasered, drugged and handcuffed by a psychopath hiding behind a reptilian mask in part sewn with dirty shoelaces. As deep as slogans on motivational posters sold at office supply stores, the words of wisdom were dispensed to Jeter during regular card games attended by fellow officers to whom he is subordinate.

Among them are Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Titus Welliver (Argo) and Super 8’s Ron Eldard (whose hair makes him look like he’s ready for trick-or-treating as Gerard Depardieu). When each cop shares his dick-measuring (metaphorically speaking) anecdote of life in the line of duty, we see it played out in full, making Poker Night a quasi-anthology of crime. Through each vignette, Jeter gleans a nugget of gumption to gain the upper hand against his crazed captor (Michael Eklund, Nurse 3D).

Since the entire movie is essentially a flashback — hindsight, ’member? — Francis shows off by continuing to dig as his characters’ recollections beget further recollections, often dipping a level or two deeper than necessary; at a couple of spots, I think we had a flashback within a flashback within a flashback within a flashback, but I can’t be 100 percent certain, and certainly you can see why. Responsible for both the script and direction, Francis is always on the move, which keeps Poker Night from becoming boring. It also makes it feel original, even though it’s not, borrowing openly from Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, wicked sense of humor included.

Viewers may be worn out by the time the Night comes to a close, and if not, perhaps the multiple endings will expend your eyeballs’ last bit of energy for you. Francis’ flick is all over the board and as crazy as the Krazy Glue with which Jeter’s nearly nude body is affixed to the wall. But in a good way, hindsight and all. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Second in the Airport quadrilogy, Airport 1975 puts cross-eyed stewardess Nancy (Karen Black, The Pyx) in the pilot’s seat when the 747 on which she serves coffee, tea and boilermakers accidentally collides head-on with a tiny, twin-engine plane.

That’s the fate that befalls the D.C.-to-L.A. commercial flight, disrupted by the sudden, rear-projected and laughably out-of-scale appearance of a Beechcraft Baron, due to a heart attack suffered by the man behind the stick (Dana Andrews, Curse of the Demon). The resulting hole in the 747’s cockpit sucks the co-pilot — or an obvious dummy stand-in — up and out to his doom, so have your finger ready on the rewind button; the scene’s a hoot.

Because Airport 1975 taxied in an era when women weren’t let near “a man’s job,” Nancy is judged ill-equipped to navigate the terrain and put the plane down in Salt Lake City, so airlines ops exec Joe Patroni (George Kennedy, reprising his role from the 1970 original) makes the Executive Decision for a midair transfer of someone more experienced via an umbilical cord from a helicopter. Even Nancy’s he-man boyfriend (Omega Man Charlton Heston) thinks the idea equates to insanity, to which a visibly vexed Patroni yells forcefully enough to provoke an aneurysm, “Goddammit, there isn’t any other way!”

Hollywood corn rarely comes as sweet as this enjoyably self-important sequel, directed by Jack Smight (The Illustrated Man) with costumes by the prestigious Edith Head. Actually released in 1974 no matter what the title says, Airport 1975 adheres to the rules of the decade’s white-hot disaster genre, namely in casting more stars than any movie needs. In the cockpit, we have Erik Estrada as the horndog navigator, but that was pre-CHiPs fame.

No matter — the cabin is jam-packed with has-beens, never-quite-weres and a couple of bona fide legends, including:
• a quip-happy Sid Caesar;
• folksinger Helen Reddy as a nun;
• Sunset Boulevard’s Gloria Swanson playing herself in what would be her cinematic swan song;
• Myrna Loy, Norman Fell, Jerry Stiller and Conrad Janis all trying to out-drink one another;
• and, most famously, The Exorcist’s Linda Blair as a girl being rushed to her kidney transplant — an audience-manipulative element that made for prime roasting material in 1980’s feature-length spoof, Airplane! —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.