This week, in cinemas: near-the-knuckle comedy in Grimsby; near-the-edge-of-your-seat horror in The Forest; and near-the-original remake in Secret In Their Eyes.
Grimsby
★
What it’s about: Sacha Baron Cohen promises to do for the people of Grimsby what he did for the people of Kazakhstan in Borat – i.e., give them terrible PR and make the locals really rather cross – with another puerile journey to the very boundaries of taste.
What we thought: “The film is xenophobic and racist, revives AIDS as a joke, and is the most horrible thing to happen to elephants since White Hunter Black Heart.”
Secret In Their Eyes
What it’s about: This is a Hollywood remake of the acclaimed Argentinian thriller El secreto de sus ojos, aka The Secret In Their Eyes. The US adaptation removes the “the” from the title. Does the definite article make all the difference?
The Forest
What it’s about: Natalie Dormer swaps the bloodshed and mayhem of Game of Thrones for a more peaceful gig: a horror movie about a forest full of ghosts. Still waiting to hear whether this has been officially approved by the Forestry Commission.
The Benefactor
What it’s about: Richard Gere plays a man whose Pretty Woman of a wife dies in a car accident. But rather than being An Officer And A Gentleman, his actions towards his son-in-law prove somewhat, ahem, Unfaithful. Something something The Mothman Prophecies.
King Jack
★★★★
What it’s about: Not, as you might expect from the title, a period drama about a little-known monarch, this is in fact a warm coming-of-age adventure film about teenage boys, which won raves at Tribeca Film Festival last year.
What we thought: “suggests big things lie ahead for its writer-director and young cast.”