The Brothers Grimsby

Year: 2016
Genre: Action Comedy
Directed: Louis Leterrier
Stars: Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Rebel Wilson, Isla Fisher, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane, Barkhad Abdi, Gabourney Sidibe
Production: Big Talk Productions

I would like to report an assault. The assault was made March 10, 2016 when Brothers Grimsby was unwittingly unleashed upon the world and permanently damaged my eyes, my heart, my dignity and my self-worth. Three times I wanted to leave this movie, three times I sat back down and took it on the jaw. I watched this movie for you so you don't have to; be thankful.

...Because every sperm is sacred

Nobby (Baron Cohen) and Sebastian (Strong) were very young when their parents died tragically. Both were entered into England's foster care system which as we've all gleamed from previous movies is not a nice place to be. Sebastian is adopted right away and moves to London, eventually becoming MI6 Tiger Tail's most valuable agent. Meanwhile Nobby grows up in the industrial town of Grimsby, raises several children in squalor and parades around the local pub with fireworks up his a**. They, for the most part are complete opposites, thus when they get reacquainted, chaos ensues and the fate of the world falls in their hands.

Let me start with the obvious; the movie stars Sacha Baron Cohen who is world renowned for his boundary-pushing brand of comedy. Those not immediately charmed by Borat (2006) or Bruno (2009) will only find more of the same here. What's lacking however is any sense of serious characterization. Nobby is a broadly drawn caricature of north England, working-class soccer hooligans. He's a miscreant and proudly so, taking exception to the eventual villain's class-conscious plan to "cure the world." Yet his character casually informing the audience of his welfare cheating and casual drug use is enough to completely undermine the movies half-realized moral.

Pictured: the good type of shenanigans

Also missing from some of Baron Cohen's better films is a vacuous rube to bounce jokes off of and make lasting satire. In Baron Cohen's mockumentaries, real people exist in the same space as his quorum of goofy characters. Thus when their personas and viewpoints are skewered through the lens of shock and gross-out humor, the satire feels well deserved if a little edgy for some. Yet in this work of glamorized spy fiction Mark Strong, an otherwise gifted and unappreciated character actor comes across as cool and collected in the face of Nobby's shenanigans. He's a terrible foil thus every gag that emanates naturally from the characters fall so desperately flat as to make the movie unbearable.

Catapulting the film beyond just bad and into terrible territory is director Louis Leterrier's frenetic direction. Infamous for committing the Transporter series (2002-2015) to celluloid, the man has a knack for finding humor (sometimes unintended) in hyperbolic action sequences. Here though, the story is chopped up like garbage disposal fleck and turned into a slurry of indecipherable rubbish. Plot-lines are added only to be forgotten; information is administered to one character only to be magically shared by all; bad jokes are called back again and again, with the misplaced confidence of a Google Glass wearer. Don't get me started on the completely unnecessary POV action sequences shot via Sebastian's hi-tech contact lenses.

It is impossible to stress how atrocious The Brothers Grimsby is. The action is lazy, the jokes are desperate, the characterizations are borderline offensive and the plot is a jumbled mess. There's an extended sequence of events that take place in Cape Town, South Africa. During these scenes not only are gifted actors Gabourney Sidibe and Barkhad Abdi completely wasted but there are several crass, over-the-top set-pieces that literally got me out of my seat to search for an exit. If anyone can find humor in an elephant's vagina, it would be Sacha Baron Cohen. Unfortunately, in this case, he missed the mark by a mile.

Final Grade: F