Here in the Northern Hemisphere it is autumn, and feeling more like winter every day. So what do we do at Kurt Dahlke’s Double Bill when the weather changes? We luck into stupid puns, which is how even though I was forced to watch Reign Over Me with my wife, it’s ok because it’s raining … you see … there’s a bit of a pun there, since reign and rain are homonyms. And you thought movie crickets weren’t smart!

Cinema-gold credits sequence: wispy Iron and Wine-style song about lost love follows a figure as he tools through the streets of Manhattan on a stand-up motorized scooter – smooth, rhythmic edits of time and location add to the hypnotic rapture. Who is this mysterious motor-scooter man, wonders wealthy cosmetic dentist Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle)? Duh, it’s Adam Sandler looking like an unholy hybrid of an aged George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards. Sandler is Charlie Fineman, (ham-fisted metaphor? You decide) an oddly charismatic, reclusive weirdo who has a mysterious wealth, a gig as a metal drummer, and a penchant to act like a man-boy (well, it is Adam Sandler after all).

Johnson recognizes Fineman as his roommate of two years from Dental College, but Fineman seems barely to recognize anything. Understandably intrigued as to what happened to a once promising Doctor, Johnson follows Fineman on a journey that leads back in time to a profound loss, and finally to possible redemption.

Reign Over Me accomplishes an interesting thing; obliquely addressing and incarnating the pain of 9/11, it presents itself as a shaggy comedy/ mystery before smacking ya in the face with a pair of dramatic tear-jerking moments that Adam Sandler is able to actually pull off. Cheadle is his usual greatness as an everyman (whatever his station in a film, rich doctor or whatever, he’s an everyman) with something under tight control just below the surface. His thriving practice threatens mutiny he seems unaware of, his marriage is perfectly fine, but subcutaneously not optimal – but his polite / pent-up drifting is interrupted by first Fineman’s mystery, then his recovery.

Throughout there are bits of comedy grace – Johnson’s receptionist, an amorous patient – and some uncooked stuff – two or three music video montages, one at a Mel Brooks festival (!) – but the whole is a pleasing combination. Amazingly, though he slips into his self-pitying boy child parody occasionally, Sandler does a decent job, he’s funny but not obnoxious, believable (especially as a drummer) and when he has to bring it he really makes you feel the enormity of Fineman’s loss. Reign Over Me isn’t a masterpiece, but a solid dramedy and a nice way to start healing some of those Twin Towers wounds.

Then again, what happens if a dragon burns down Big Ben? That’s the question posed by Reign Of Fire, a totally badass, underappreciated CGI epic from the days (1993 – present) when studios were churning out effects laden crap by the score, hoping something would hit and they would clock a cool half-bill.

Reign Of Fire stars Christian Bale as Quinn, a post-apocalyptic shepherd-of-men in a time when dragons have killed and burned just about everything on the planet. Trick is, Quinn is the dude who, as a young boy, was the one who more-or-less woke the dragons up. With heavy heart he works just to keep his people alive, when along comes Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) and his crew of American GI dragon-killers. Snappy macho posturing, dire pronouncements, fisticuffs and balls-to-the-wall man-to-dragon combat ensues before a cozy, pat ending wraps things up sweetly.

At first, Reign Of Fire seems set up to be yet another example of over-stimulated filmmaking, too much action, too much detail, too many edits. There’s something to be said for a time when low budgets kept sets and accoutrements to a minimum, but Reign actually overcomes this more-is-more handicap through the good graces of Messer’s Bale and McConaughey (and some truly rad lizards). Bale as the Britisher is his usual shaggy, devoted self – his roles have mostly been ultra-beleaguered dudes and this is no exception – but he always leaves it on the floor and is never anything less than totally believable. Better yet is McConaughey who chews into his role like it was a ten-day-old Powerbar.

Bald, muscle-bound and sweating bullets, Van Zan is a scarily driven monomaniac, and McConaughey devotes so much emotion, ego and fire he’s like a little human dragon come down to scare Quinn into shape.

Reign Of Fire isn’t anything more than a 90-minute spectacle to make you wag your head and say ‘cool …’ but as such movies go it works like a top. The mechanics are run by top-notch special effects and two top (over-the-top?) performances from a pair of almost-leading men who make character acting a macho thing to do again.

If the rain is getting you down, shed a tear or two with Cheadle and Sandler in Reign Over Me (you know you need a good cry), but then burn those tears and that bad old rain away with a little dragon-fire in Reign Of Fire.