Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell get the chance to shamelessly chomp on the scenery as the eponymous
Horrible Bosses, this week's big movie screened to UK critics. It's a lot of fun to watch, even if it reflects that calculated Hollywood filmmaking style in which the script is more an exercise in assembly-line marketing (hapless heroes, periodic gross-out gags, big-name cameos, Aniston as a sexual predator) than an actual story. The same can also be said for the Americanisation of
The Smurfs, a 3D romp made from a by-the-numbers script. But at least there are some flashes of real wit in both films.
Much more interesting were two grisly thrillers: Ben Wheatley's genre-busting dramatic horror film
Kill List and, to a lesser extent, the Butcher Brothers' grotesque horror sci-fi romp
The Violent Kind both have the ability to continually catch us off guard, which doesn't happen nearly enough to a jaded film critic. And three other smaller films show considerable talent on a micro-budget: Sundance parallel-world winner
Another Earth, the London relationship/crime drama
Turnout and the extremely low-key 1970s-set Chilean thriller
Post Mortem. All three have style and skill to burn, including excellent casts and offbeat approaches to narrative, even if each of them feels a little pretentious.
This coming week we have the football doc
The Referees, the experimental Alaskan film
The Nine Muses and two indie gay rom-coms:
Weekend and
Finding Me: Truth. There are also a couple of biggies, with Chris Evans as
Captain America: The First Avenger and Jim Carrey starring in the kiddie romp
Mr Popper's Penguins. I can't quite decide whether I'm looking forward to either of those, but I think I'm beginning to feel harassed at the office.
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