The Brothers Grimsby We Re Done With Sacha Baron Cohen Now Yes

I think it’s time that we seriously have to consider what we’re allowing Sacha Baron Cohen to get away with at the cinema. After a couple of rounds with Baron Cohen’s characters, it gets tiresome. Borat was the peak, and it’s just been downhill from there. That’s too bad, since Baron Cohen is undoubtedly talented, funny, and willing to do pretty much anything to get a laugh, but the characters he’s played recently, and the films in which they’ve been included, just haven’t worked. The Brothers Grimsby sees Baron Cohen play Nobby Butcher, a low-class, small town British man who lives for the English football team and the endless number of children he’s helped spawn. He misses his brother, from whom he’s been estranged for the last 20+ years, but life’s going pretty well for him. However, after hearing word his brother was attending an important event, he manages to get inside, find his brother … and promptly ruin his brother’s plan to stop an assassination attempt. His brother, Sebastian (Mark Strong), is a top MI6 agent, and because of Nobby’s unwarranted intervention, he’s pointed as the assassin – a spy gone rogue. So, Sebastian has to go through the most basic of spy plots in order to clear his good name, taking Nobby with him for plot reasons. At his best, Sacha Baron Cohen uses his characters to make a point. Here, that point is missing. The Brothers Grimsby is a venomless film, hoping that the jokes are enough to carry the film. So, when the jokes fall flat – as they often do here – there’s nothing else. And without the sharpness behind the jokes, the offensiveness isn’t going to do more than make people cringe – at their best, in other movies, they’ll offend but make you think about why they offend. They act as social commentary, but here that’s been ignored for, primarily, grossout humor. The Brothers Grimsby has a couple of other issues beyond the comedy. Since it’s a spy movie, there are a few action scenes scattered throughout. They range from boring to borderline incomprehensible. There are two Doom-esque first-person scenes that in no way, shape, or form work, and they make one really wonder about how Hardcore Henry will work when it’s released in a month’s time. The supporting cast plays everything straight and that often leads them looking uncomfortable with Baron Cohen’s actions, unable to turn in anything close to good performances because they’re so focused on keeping a straight face. I felt sorry for Mark Strong, Isla Fisher, and Penelope Cruz. This is a black mark on their careers. The Brothers Grimsby is the worst Sacha Baron Cohen movie so far, and that’s pretty impressive considering he starred in The Dictator. It has a handful of laughs – five or fewer – scattered throughout its mercifully brief running time, but they’re nowhere good enough to make the film worth seeing. Most of it is cringeworthy, there’s no bite behind the offensive comedy, and some of it feels like it has been rehashed from Baron Cohen’s previous work. There’s nothing here to like. Bottom Line: Stupid and lacking the venom of his earlier films, The Brothers Grimsby is the worst Sacha Baron Cohen film so far, and a black mark on the careers of everyone involved. Recommendation: Just go re-watch Borat. [rating=0.5]