Grimsby, Secret in Their Eyes, The Forest The Film Review

found dead in DNR me I walked for. It's not immediately clear how they

died. -- in Vietnam. Hello, and welcome to The Film

Review on BBC News. To take us through this week 's cinema releases

is Mark Kermode. What do we have?

Secret In Their Eyes, a remake of the Argentinian award winner.

We have The Forest, a wannabe creepy horror movie.

And Grimsby, the latest from Sacha Baron Cohen.

Now, Grimsby sounds like an interesting trait, but we will start

with secrets in their eyes. It's a remake of an Argentinian film that

won the best skirt -- which won the Best foreign language Oscar. It

moves the action of 1970s Argentina to 20th-century America.

We begin with Chiwetel Ejiofor's former FBI investigator scanning

facial images on a screen. It's an interesting opening, through the

screen you see faces reflected in his glasses, he sees something and

it's obvious he's found something. He goes to Nicole Kidman's district

attorney, he's not seen her in a while, he wants her to reopen the

case on what looks like shaky foundations. He meets his former

colleague, played by Julia Roberts. Here is a clip. Jess. Jesus, how are

you? How are you? I'm good. How you? I'm fine. I was just

congratulating... Well, you made chief investigator, right? I'm

looking at royalty here! Are you still living in Moorpark? Yes, it is

quite out there but I like the quiet. I used a bureau? No, I went

private sector. -- are you still. I will let you to... No, state police.

It's about you. -- no, state police. I found him, Jess. I found Martin.

What he thinks he has found is the perpetrator of a hideous crime that

joins them together from 13 years ago. The film slips backwards and

forwards between 2002 and 2015. It's about obsession, loss, and mirrors

and changes from the original. If you are a fan of the original, it's

likely you won't find a lot in here that will delight and entertain. It

does not have the classic quality of the original. But, it does have a

couple of good performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor manages to carry

the weight of making a story that does not quite gelled together.

They've taken the political context from the first film and transposed

it to post nine slash 11 America. It makes you just about believe in the

structure of the story. The heart and soul of it is Julia Roberts --

9/11 America. She is terrific. She embodies the grief of the story, the

possession of the story and the anguish. She really becomes the

centre of it. There is meant to be a boiling tension a passionate tension

between Chiwetel Ejiofor and Nicole Kidman's character, but it never

came together for me. When you compare it to the passion in the

original, it is lacking. But, I think Julia Roberts's performance is

worth the price of admission. Never rewrite a hit, when you see a number

of Swedish Noir films in Hollywood, they aren't as good? No, what has

happened is the transition has happened to make it available to an

English-speaking multiplex audience. When you see it as a multiplex

thriller, it is fine. It is an uneven drama, but Julia Roberts

actually did hold it together. And, I could honestly watch Chiwetel

Ejiofor reading the phone book. He has a way of convincing you, even

when something is not hanging together, you believe in it because

you believe in him. For the performances, it is passingly...

The Forest. It's a horror movie based in Aokigahara forest. The

story is Natalie Dormer is Sarah Price, and discovers her twin has

gone into The Forest. She's told if you go into The Forest, you won't

return. She goes off to The Forest in search of her. The film becomes a

walking tour of horror trope. You go OK, that is the setting, then there

are the tents that go bump in the night from the Blair witch Project.

There are elements of the cabin in the woods. I'm not feeling it! Here

is the thing, if you have not seen any of those horror films, as a mid

range to luck, it would do fine. But, it has a terribly touristy feel

to it. There's nothing in there that has any originality whatsoever.

It is utterly mechanical. I've seen far worse. But it is an memorable in

the extreme. I've seen far worse! That's going on the poster! I cannot

stand horror films where a group of people are told not to do something

and they are really -- as it is really stupid and bad, and they do

it anyway. You have seen Screen. This is forgettable. The Forgettable

Forest would be a better name. -- Scream. Grimsby. How do you find

Sacha Baron Cohen? I'm open to it, I can see why it is possibly offensive

to anyone in Grimsby. You don't attack people's towns. That is one

of the things that has been raised. The story is his character is called

Nobby, he lives in Grimsby and walks around in his underpants. His

brother is a spy agent, and they end up together, they had to hole up

together in Grimsby. Next thing, they are both taking part in the

super spy action. Here is a clip. Goodbye, Nobby. Don't worry, I won't

leave you! My ankle! Get off me! My ankle has shattered. You'll need to

carry me. Get over my shoulder. Sorry! Getting! You'll have to

drive. Get going. Don't worry, it's bullet-proof. You can't hit us, we

have bullet-proof glass. You laugh... Three times! There we go. I

had to say it is three more than me! My problem is, when the director is

doing action sequences, he's quite good, but as far as I'm concerned,

he does not have a particular eye or ear for comedy. I love Mark Strong,

I think him keeping a straight face is fairly impressive. What you don't

get from that clip is that as the central idea begins to wear thin,

they build up the toilet humour. It's not just bums, but its toilets

and bodily fluids, and elephants... Elephants? I'm not even going to

begin... It becomes a symphony of grotesquerie. My problem with it is

that I'm never very impressed by gross humour. I just don't find it

very funny. There are some critics who really like it. Oddly enough,

amidst the bodily fluids and excretion, all of that stuff,

there's a weird sentimental side to the film, which either offsets or

jars with the rest of the film, depending on how you feel. My

feeling generally is that the more desperate the desire to outrage, the

more the thing falls flat. To be honest, I did not laugh. I sat in a

public screening of it, it was about half full. Some people laughed a

little but nothing like as much as they should have done. As I was

coming out, somebody said "How many times can you make the same joke in

one movie?" The answer is very many times indeed. I would be interested

to hear what you think. I think you would find 25 minutes, and your

patients would be worn out. I may just get the Minions DVD out! It is

funny! I don't find people try to shock and offend me funny. We've

gone from elephants to Brands. That's your best of the week. I will

stop banging on about this, that it is such an interesting film -- Rams.

A black comedy, two brothers are separated and they have to join

together when their sheep are threatened after an outbreak of a

disease. It's deadpan, the more I think about it, the more I like it.

Tragicomic. It's great to look at. Worth seeing in the cinema. Later

people have come to me and said they've seen it, they really like

it. They've come to me as well. There is not going to be a Hollywood

remake! With Julia Roberts! Your DVD is Brooklyn. It is a great film. It

was is really lovely. I suspect it will come away from the Oscars

empty-handed, but I think it is a brilliant adaptation of the book.

Saoirse Ronan is brilliant in the central role of an Irish girl who

goes to America and finds herself torn between two countries. The film

was a hard sell. Grimsby has Sasha Baron Cohen, the other Nicole

Kidman, Brooklyn is a hard film to sell but I am yet to find someone

who has not loved it who has seen it. You loved it as well? It was

very moving, a very nice film. That and Rams.

Then you can give Grimsby a pass! For more information, go to the

website. That's all for this week, thank you

for watching, enjoy the movie. Goodbye.

Perhaps it was an afternoon to stay in watching movies today, if you

live in Cornwall, let me show you one of the weather Watchers pictures

sent in from here. Pretty bleak, it a lot