Cinemazlowski Double movie review: 'The Brothers Grimsby' and '10 Cloverfield Lane'

Some weekends are weird times for new film releases. This weekend, the latest in the "Divergent" film series - "The Divergent Series: Allegiant Part I" – is the only big new movie, and I'm skipping it because I fundamentally don't see the magic in this obvious "Hunger Games" knockoff.

 

That said, according to the reasons given for its PG-13 rating by the ratings board, "Allegiant" is probably fun, exciting fare for teens. The movie has no foul language mentioned, and there's no sex, but a lot of midlevel action violence that never gets too bloody, but according to IMDB's usually reliable content advisory for parents, there's a quick rear nudity shot of a female as she's sprayed with decontaminant after being endangered. I'm not a particular fan of dystopian teen fiction, wishing that someone could bring back the magic style of John Hughes' best work, but the "Divergent" series that includes "Allegiant" does feature positive portrayals of teens battling dangerously oppressive governments, and that's a good message. 

 

So this week, I'm catching up on a pair of releases from last weekend – "The Brothers Grimsby" and "10 Cloverfield Lane" – which couldn't be more different on the surface. Yet under the surface, one can find a common goal: they're both trying to freak out their viewers.

 

"Grimsby" is the latest movie by Sacha Baron Cohen, the British comedy star who made a huge splash in America with 2006's "Borat" before experiencing successful yet diminishing returns with "Bruno" and "The Dictator." His latest features Cohen as Nobby, a gross and clueless, soccer-obsessed working-class buffoon whose long-lost brother Sebastian (Mark Strong) is the British intelligence agency MI6's top assassin.

 

Nobby finds Sebastian after 28 years apart just as he's about to stop a terrorist from committing a murder. But Nobby makes Sebastian shoot off-target, killing an innocent person and injuring others, leading MI6 to believe that he's gone rogue and sending a team of assassins out to kill him.

 

Since Nobby says he has the perfect place to hide, Sebastian goes on the run with him, and they wind up back in their comically bleak childhood hometown of Grimsby. There, he's surrounded by Nobby's gross girlfriend (Rebel Wilson, shameless in her pursuit of laughs) and their seemingly endless gaggle of children, as well as his own disgusting friends and family members.

 

This leads to a string of incredibly crude yet occasionally funny  misadventures as they also try to stop terrorists from launching a germ warfare attack, at the same time that they have some surprisingly sweet and serious scenes in which they pierce together the childhood tragedy that tore them apart. But be warned – if the prospect of two men evading killers by hiding inside an elephant's birth canal (yes, you read right) before being subjected to an unwitting sexual onslaught from a string of male elephants. (again, you read right)

 

"The Brothers Grimsby" is undeniably raunchy and at times unbelievably gross, and as such will freak out the vast majority of audiences. It's a shame because the movie's core central plot is inventive, and under the surface, the movie is often exciting, funny and even touching.  But if you don't believe me about it going too far, consider the fact that there's at least one major sequence that's even harder to describe than the elephant scene.  

 

Add in plenty of foul language and sex jokes, plus graphic nudity, running gags about drunkenness and heroin use, and a lot of non-graphic action violence, and "Brothers Grimsby" is a must-avoid for discerning viewers.   

 

Meanwhile, "10 Cloverfield Lane" is a pseudo-sequel to the 2008 surprise horror hit "Cloverfield," for which I notoriously opened my review by saying, "Wow." Produced by J.J. Abrams, the man with the golden touch behind hits ranging from TV's "Lost" to the last three "Mission: Impossible" films, the "Star Trek" movie reboot and the last "Star Wars" movie, "Cloverfield" was perhaps the scariest found-footage movie ever, as it depicted a group of New York City yuppie friends on the run from a giant alien monster.

 

The new film takes an entirely different approach, while remaining rooted in the same cinematic universe as the first. While the first "Cloverfield" starred then-unknowns, "Lane" stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead (a top indie actress marking her first starring role in a major-studio movie) and John Goodman in the story of a woman named Michelle, who flees both an attack on her city and a bad relationship, only to wake up in the underground bunker of a mysterious man named Howard.

 

But this isn't your typical hostage drama centering on how Michelle can escape. For one thing, a nice local guy named Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.) is also staying there, with a broken arm from the fact he fought to get inside the bunker before it was too late to be safe outside. Yet he and certainly Michelle don't know which of Howard's seemingly crazy-paranoid ideas to believe: that the outside world has been affected by a nuclear bomb, chemical warfare, Russian invasion or an attack by aliens.

 

As they try to figure out if Howard's just crazy and what happened to a previous woman named Megan who mysteriously no longer lives there, director Dan Trachtenberg manages to weave rich performances (some critics are already calling Winstead and Goodman possible Oscar contenders) with a full  spectrum of emotions in a claustrophobic setting. His subtle guidance of the tale is immeasurably assisted by the brilliant score by Bear McCreary, whose work recounts the finest moments of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite composer, Bernard Herrmann.

 

Tense, unpredictable, surprising and scary, "10 Cloverfield Lane" easily tops its terrific predecessor and sets a high bar for the rest of the year's films. It also has only one F word, and almost no noticeable other foul language, no sex, and no nudity. There are a couple of brief shocking bursts of violence, but nothing teens can't handle.

 

In fact, teens and adults should totally love this movie. If you like scifi, thrillers, horror movies or just plain great filmmaking, see it for certain.