Much like writer Reginald Rose’s 1955 liberal, kitchen-sink drama, 12 uses a seemingly open-and-shut case — a Chechnyan teen accused of murdering his adoptive Russian father — as a window into the cultural mind-sets and mores of the 12 men who must decide his guilt or innocence. But, unlike the original, the accused’s life is no longer on the line. While life imprisonment’s no vacation (especially, one imagines, in a Russian prison), without the specter of death hanging over the boy’s head, the stakes aren’t as high or urgent.
Ronnie Barnhardt (Rogen) heads security at a suburban mall, where a flasher has started terrorizing shoppers in the parking lot. The delusional and likeably creepy mama’s boy sees it as an opportunity to show his law-enforcement skills and land the job of his dreams as a police officer. Even better, Brandi, a vapid makeup counter girl (Anna Farris) is accosted, giving him access to the object of his desire. Unfortunately, the arrival of an arrogant investigating detective (Ray Liotta) spins Ronnie between psychotic competitiveness and sycophantic posturing.
Miley Cyrus stars as Miley Stewart, a gawky teen girl who dons a blond wig and becomes singing sensation Hannah Montana, a superstar character Cyrus also performs in real life, and whose image is plastered on all manner of posters, toys, pencil boxes and Trapper Keepers as far as the eye can see. This despite that she looks like a Muppet with its face squished against a windshield. Miley’s dad Robby Ray is conveniently played by Miley’s real dad, Billy Ray. The flimsy plot finds Miley getting way too cozy in the Hollywood lifestyle, her alter ego; therefore Pop imposes a two-week timeout back on the farm. So it’s off to pastoral Crowley Corners, Tenn., an idyllic country dreamland of lush, rolling hills, tall grass and big dollops of folksy homespun wisdom doled out by Grandma (Margo Martindale). There’s also a hunky cowboy with whom Miley can flirt, and a comely farmhand (Melora Hardin) for Dad to mack on, in between impromptu front-porch sing-alongs.
Seemingly assembled from the remnants of better movies, but with its own weirdo energy, Mysteries is undermined by the chalkboard blankness of its hero, played listlessly by handsome cipher Jon Foster (The Informers). The son of a tasteful, upscale crime boss (Nick Nolte), Art Bechstein is a college grad headed for a prepackaged stockbroker career who decides to spend his last free summer idling at home. He takes a mindless clerk job at the discount Book Barn, where he bangs Mena Suvari all day in the stockroom. But he’s the type of drip who’d rather chase after the blandly gorgeous Jane, (Sienna Miller) — the sort of aloof blond Shiksa goddess who’s been haunting the wet dreams of mushy literary protagonists forever. Jane is only one corner of a romantic triangle, which is completed by her boyfriend Cleveland (Peter Sarsgaard), a charming, omnisexual thug who has a bizarre psychological and erotic hold on Art.