Jones has played his crankiness for comic effect often enough over the years, but director David Frankel ("The Devil Wears Prada") keeps the actors rooted in naturalism, not caricature, and it's exciting to see Jones respond with a performance of discipline and subtlety.
With Alan Cumming, enjoying himself to a quite illicit degree as a Teutonic devil, and Brian Cox as a neo-con mutant-hunter, whose goatee may be the most villainous effect of all.