Columbia

R. 83 min

Funny thing about Sacha Baron Cohen. I must admit that I admire the guys ability as a character actor, dialect and knack for slapstick comedy an oddball physical shtick.

That being said I've hated or disliked just about everything I've seen him in, except possibly HUGO.

In BORAT and BRUNO fake documentaries I never really bought the premise that everybody else in the movie was as completely clue free as the comedy seemed to suggest. I smelled a setup; a rat if you will from beginning to end. I don't think most folks would be surprised to learn that some folks taken from the audience in a magic show are actually plants and there at every stop along the tour but it does make the magic a little less, well, magical. That's what happened with those films, for me anyway.

Beyond that, every film Cohen stars in seems to have an awful lot toilet humor that steps over the line from just gross into truly disgusting. One might wonder if his agent is at fault but a quick glance at the credits shows that Cohen is not only listed as producer but writer, leaving very little doubt as to where to lay the blame. I suppose there are some 14 year old Beavis and Butt-head types with a stolen 6 pack of Bud Light who think this kind of crap is hilarious, and possibly there are enough of them to turn a profit. Not me.

The brothers Grimsby is billed as a action adventure and yeah I suppose it is, but I'd say it's more of a vulgar comedy that just happens to include action and adventure.

Nobby (Cohen) and Sebastian (Mark Strong) are inseparable orphan brothers separated nearly 30 years ago by a cruel twist of fate. Sebastian will grow up to be a dashing English secret agent while Nobby spends his years in a trashy English fishing village surrounded by lowlifes and idiots.

Seriously these people really are morons. The plot itself is actually just a ridiculous framework in which Sebastian is framed buy some bad people in a plot to kill all the stupid people in the world. That's not an altogether terrible idea, I thought, but...

As I say it's only a framework in which to hold together a series of distasteful situations and sight gags, and let me tell you the term gag is very appropriate.

I'll describe just one as delicately as possible. At one point the two brothers are stranded in Africa trying to get away from the bad guys. They hide inside an elephant's vagina. That's right, it's not a typographical error. Once the two are inside the elephant the male elephant shows up with loving on his mind. The entire scene is graphically displayed from the inside of the lady elephant from start to climax. That's not the worst joke in the movie by a long shot but should give you a bit of an idea in which direction the humor leads the audience.

Truthfully, even though there wasn't a laugh in sight I still wasn't bored which is the killer for a bad movie, and while I certainly can't recommend it I have to admit that it could have, somehow, been worse.

C

WSS