See these films: The Robber + Viva Riva! at the Brattle

Viva Riva!

A recent overlooked mini-masterpiece, Austrian director Benjamin Heisenberg's The Robber (2010; screens at 3:30 and 7:30 pm) features an electrifying performance by Andreas Lust as the real-life felon of the title, who supplements his compulsive bank robbing with marathon running, two metaphors of existential futility that prove not altogether complementary. It screens with Congo director Djo Munga's Viva Riva! (2010; screens at 5:30 and 9:30 pm), another case study of criminal pathology, this one involving a cache of smuggled gas fought over by rival gangsters in Kinshasha. That's at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | $10; $8 students, seniors | 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org.