Mark Rylance stars as an insouciant Magistrate With No Name, stationed at the outpost of an unspecified border, whose only brush with justice involves a case of pig-poaching. Light carved through a square in the Magistrate’s ceiling heralded a talented eye behind the lens, but nothing prepared me for shadow-sculptor Chris Menges (Shy People, Notes on a Scandal). Ditto Johnny Depp, reminding us of the actor that was, in the guise of sadistic Colonel Joll. He arrives to investigate unrest, but not before introducing this part of the world to the concept of steampunk sunglasses. (If Jack Sparrow had worn these X-specs, everyone at Disneyland would be sporting a pair.) With little in the way of unrest to report, Joll works up some of his own in the form of commendable and inventive torture. (Imagine a human centipede of prisoners stitched together Macaulay Culkin-style.) Rylance returns to the post after abandoning it long enough to help a woman with two broken (by Joll) ankles make it back to her tribe, only to be arrested and tortured by Officer Mandel (Robert Pattinson). Spoiler alert: the barbarians are us, and this type of obvious messaging remains the one big problem with this otherwise absorbing portrait of stout despair. (2019) — Scott Marks