The Cottage

…won’t win hearts or minds, but it’s a dandy little nasty entertainment with enough wit and style–and a kick-drum wonder of a final shot–and I think it’s worth a look. Andy Serkis and Reece Sheersmith (familiar to many of us from “The League of Gentlemen,” whose name itself seems a product of said League) star as brothers involved in low-level criminal thuggery, a foolish kidnapping of a boss’ daughter, and the film opens somewhere north-northeast of nastier comic noirs by the Coens or Ritchie. They’re imbeciles, if relatively likable. And then the film takes a left turn toward those Hills with eyes, and things get violent, genuinely creepy and suspenseful, and still generally likable and funny. Again, nothing spectacular–the director, one Paul Andrew Williams, is coming off a well-received and annoyingly-unavailable-in-the-States thriller called London to Brighton, and he displays far more patience, visual wit, and structural clarity than the aforementioned Ritchie. This may be more my cup of joe than Gio’s, or most of youse, as I remain a sucker for homicidal mutant hicks and needless chopping and spurting, but the leads are funny and fun to watch, and … well, there you have it.