Why Do Hollywood's Message Movies Have To Play It So Safe And Be So Dull?

Good intentions pave the way to hell, but sometimes they stop off en route at LA's Dolby Theater (or, prior to 2001, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion), and so may seem worth the risk. Hollywood has a long and noble tradition… well, Hollywood has a long tradition of recognizing and awarding films deemed Socially Important, and if anything, 2015 has seen a higher than usual number of star-centric, issues-driven hopefuls enter the awards fray. This week, another of those titles opens theatrically. "Freeheld" (our review) first played in Toronto the day after the Weinstein-backed "About Ray" (our review) debuted there, a mere eight days after Tom Hooper's "The Danish Girl" (our review) fluttered prettily into Venice, and nine after "Suffragette" (our review) first picketed Telluride.

It's, of course, reductive to scotch tape those titles together and treat them as a bundle, but we can feel marginally justified in doing so. Not because the struggle for...