Miss Sloane

A ruthless, workaholic Washington lobbyist (Jessica Chastain) takes on the NRA over a background-check bill making its way through Congress. First-time writer Jonathan Perera appears to have come down with a bad case of Aaron Sorkin Disease—his script is a fervid manifesto masquerading as a political thriller, ringing false from the title on down (does anybody even say “Miss” anymore outside of beauty pageants?), and bristling with dialogue that sounds like bumper-sticker slogans cribbed from the Huffington Post gift shop. Chastain stomps around barking at everybody—she practically has “ball buster” tattooed on her forehead—while director John Madden and his cast (Sam Waterston, John Lithgow, Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alison Pill, etc.) struggle to bring all these glib stick figures to life. J.L.