Gangland Economics at the Multiplex

In politics, it’s the silly season: sound bites and scandals, gotchas and gaffes. Policy is hardly being discussed at any level more complex than name-calling. No better time, then, to take oneself off to the multiplex and seek distraction. I saw both of last weekend’s top-grossing films, “Black Mass” and “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.” The two turn out to have a commonality that is not entirely unrelated to our political moment: Both leave unclear the economics behind the worlds they’re seeking to create for us.