The Brothers Grimsby: An Extreme Spy Comedy with Working-Class Humor and… Elephant Insemination?
British secret agent Sebastian (Mark Strong) is on a mission to prevent an assassination attempt on international officials. However, during the operation, he stumbles upon his older brother Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen), whom he hasn’t seen since childhood. Unlike Seb, Nobby grew up in their hometown of Grimsby, a working-class port, and is now an unemployed alcoholic and football fanatic living on social benefits with his large family. Nobby’s accidental interference in his brother’s mission leads to the death of the head of the World Health Organization, and Sebastian is branded a traitor and hunted down. To clear his name, the agent must accept the help of his dim-witted brother and travel with him first to Africa, and then to Chile for the World Cup.
Grimsby is a real “depressed” town on the North Sea coast, which in the mid-20th century was home to the world’s largest fishing fleet. Now it mainly processes fish caught by Icelanders.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Signature Style
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen rose to fame as an inventive “troll”-chameleon. He portrayed grotesque characters like the Kazakh anti-Semitic journalist Borat or the British über-fan of hip-hop Ali G and interviewed famous and not-so-famous people, trying to provoke them into making incorrect statements or foolish behavior. But the more popular he became, the harder it was for him to find unsuspecting victims. So, after the release of the 2009 pseudo-documentary comedy “Bruno,” where Baron Cohen “trolled” celebrities in the guise of an Austrian gay fashion reporter, the comedian had to focus on working on feature films and cartoons (he voiced King Julien in “Madagascar”). In “The Brothers Grimsby,” there are no documentary shots – it’s a regular farcical comedy. Unless, of course, your idea of “regular” includes a scene in which a man is anally violated by an elephant.
Unlike the characters in the film, its creators were not in Chile. The culminating “Chilean” scenes of the film were shot in South Africa, in the city of Cape Town.
Pushing Boundaries of Comedy
Yes, Baron Cohen’s willingness to “troll” and provoke has not disappeared. On the contrary, it has reached new, truly cosmic heights. Therefore, his new comedy, directed by French director Louis Leterrier (“The Transporter,” “The Incredible Hulk”), is 95% composed of two types of jokes and gags – funny but harsh mockery of the British “chavs” (dumb as doornails, never work, drink like horses, multiply like rabbits, dress terribly, will tear each other’s throats out for their favorite team…) and nauseating “sexual” scenes, usually associated with sticking various objects into men’s asses, from firecrackers to an elephant’s penis. And if you think that “The Brothers Grimsby” does not have a scene in which a man is doused from head to toe with elephant sperm while hiding in an elephant’s vagina, then you are mistaken. And this is not the most extreme fragment of the film!
What Else to Expect
The remaining 5% of “The Brothers Grimsby” contains a barely coherent parody-thriller plot, brotherly confessions of love, and a couple of action scenes shot from the first person, in the spirit of Ilya Naishuller’s upcoming “Hardcore” (by the way, our director’s scenes look much better). However, Leterrier’s film is a comedy with shootouts, not an action movie with jokes, and if you are not happy with humor about “chavs” and elephant sperm, then you will not lose anything if you bypass “The Brothers Grimsby.” On the other hand, if you have always felt that the rhino jokes from the second “Ace Ventura” were not extreme enough, then Leterrier has made the movie of your dreams.
In addition to the two leading actors, who successfully fit into their roles (Strong has always been convincing as a “tough guy,” and Baron Cohen is a master of transforming into ridiculous fools), the film stars Rebel Wilson, Isla Fisher, Penélope Cruz, and Gabourey Sidibe. Guess which of these actresses has erotic moments in the film! That’s right, Wilson and Sidibe. Because Baron Cohen’s character likes not only to drink and riot but also to have sex with very full-figured women. So, the elephant theme in “The Brothers Grimsby” is revealed by 200%, but fans of Fisher and Cruz will be very disappointed. Since Cruz has a role in the film that is important but almost episodic, and Fisher, who plays Sebastian’s curator from MI6, sits at the computer throughout the film, secretly supporting the brothers from London. Perhaps this should please radical feminists, who often worry that stars with the appearance of Wilson and Sidibe rarely play romantic roles. But these actresses also spend very little time on screen. The title of the film does not deceive – it is indeed a movie about brothers. “Well, what about the girls? The girls come later!”