The Nut Job

Directed by Peter Lepeniotis, The Nut Job follows several urban animals, led by Will Arnett’s Surly, as they attempt to pull off a heist at a nearby nut shop – with complications ensuing after dangerous mobsters arrive on the scene. It’s a reasonable-enough premise that is, by and large, employed to woefully uninvolving (and progressively interminable) effect by Lepeniotis, as the filmmaker, armed with his and Lorne Cameron’s screenplay, delivers a frenetic yet oddly convoluted story that holds the viewer at arms length from beginning to end – with the far-from-engrossing atmosphere compounded by a momentum-free narrative and general lack of compelling, interesting characters. (The latter is particularly surprising given the presence of talented performers as Brendan Fraser, Liam Neeson, Katherine Heigl, and Stephen Lang within the picture’s voice cast.) There is, as such, little doubt that one’s efforts at working up any enthusiasm for the larger-than-life happenings fall hopelessly flat on a recurring basis, which, when coupled with an absolutely endless final stretch, confirms The Nut Job‘s place as a bottom-of-the-barrel animated endeavor that seems unlikely even to appeal to small children.

* out of ****