Cub (15)
two stars
Dir: Jonas Govaerts
With: Maurice Luijten, Evelien Bosmans
Runtime: 84 minutes
THIS Belgian horror starts out promisingly enough with a troop of boy scouts heading off for a weekend in the woods, despite rumours that something evil that way lurks. Is it all a tall tale made up by their japester leaders, or a warning they should heed? Director Jonas Govaerts wins a few Brownie points with some early humour, then loses them again as the initially intriguing tale descends into hard to stomach nastiness. Be prepared.
Hot Pursuit (12A)
one star
Dir: Anne Fletcher
With: Sofia Vergara, Reese Witherspoon
Runtime: 87 minutes
TIS the season to bring out your cinematic dead, and Anne Fletcher’s comedy is quite the flatliner. Reese Witherspoon plays a cop who is assigned to transport a drug lord’s wife to Dallas where she is meant to testify, but best laid plans and all that. Sofia Vergara, playing the spouse, varies not an inch from her Modern Family persona, except here she doesn’t have a sharp script to work with and suffers for it. Witherspoon, meanwhile, seems to have left her comedy chops at home. A dud.
The Reunion (15)
three stars
Dir: Anna Odell
With: Anna Odell, Anders Berg
Runtime: 90 minutes
HOW do you take rejection? If you are Swedish artist and filmmaker Anna Odell, the answer is not well but creatively. Odell was left off the guest list for her school reunion, so she opted to make a film about it. That being not quite enough, she got in touch with those who partied hearty without her, showed them the film, then took them to task for their alleged treatment of her. An interesting notion, raising questions about the cruelty of children and the difficulty of leaving the past behind, but the tricksy execution - what is real, what is not - is irritating. One might also wonder, with Odell’s “classmates”, why anyone should care so much.
Glasgow Film Theatre, July 31-August 3
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