Even a strong performance from Marion Cotillard and a fairly good one from Joaquin Phoenix fail to ignite the stodgy if rigorous The Immigrant. Supporting characters are uniformly stock, the story stretches plausibility more than once, and Ellis Island seems like Alcatraz one day, a Barnum & Bailey circus the next. Jeremy Renner as a magician and fraternal nemesis to Phoenix, provides a counterpart to the rest of the overtly serious leads, Cotillard could make me cry doing a commercial, and it’s fun to watch Phoenix get angry and put his Marlon Brando on, but sorry to say immigration woes shouldn’t feel this nondescript.