'The Brothers Grimsby': Fraternally Filthy
I don't quite know yet if I've been scarred for life by Sacha Baron Cohen's "The Brothers Grimsby," an audacious exercise in bad taste that goes over the top and, like a playground swing gone wild, loops around a few times. It'd be easy to simply say it's tasteless, vulgar garbage that would push the envelope of even the most broadminded viewers and end the review right here.
But then that would only be 68 words and they pay me the big bucks to deliver 830, give or take a bon mot. Besides, I laughed here and there and it may be therapeutic to analyze why.
Telling the tale of Nobby Butcher (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Sebastian Graves (Mark Strong), brothers emanating from lower-class roots in England's decrepit Grimsby and separated in adolescence, it's amazing there's still a sacred cow or two that hasn't been upturned by film's end. Granted, there are a few witty and so-called legitimate laughs. But you'd need the literary equivalent of Whitney's cotton gin to separate those instances from the greater morass of offensive material that populates Cohen's screenplay, untidily directed by Louis Leterrier.
Essentially one big dirty joke, "The Brothers Grimsby" reminds of the bratty kid who has just learned a new obscenity and won't cease blurting it. On and on it goes, and just how far Cohen's smut mill will go, well, that's the question. If you don't walk out by the quartermark, either you really love the franchise (like the guy behind us who couldn't stop howling), you're on the clock like me (my excuse), or you're just curious to see if there is an absolute bottom to the depths Cohen will sink in the name of shock and debasement.
It's sort of like the idea of infinity applied to humor. We figure there's a limit somewhere out there, but then what unthinkable crudity lies beyond that? It's a bit scary. While the truly important aspects regarding freedom of speech are oft constricted by invasive government, the consolation to the masses is a slackening in decorum and what's considered improper. It's now OK for words to dress in sweat pants.
While this fuddy-duddy is at least three decades behind in sitcom viewing, when some of it flashes before me I can't help but ask, "Is that allowed now?"
All this said, Cohen has found his niche among the great unwashed, combining sarcastic social criticism, whatever bawdiness comes to mind and his trademarked method of skirting and/or crossing the line of impropriety we viewers subconsciously establish. The art is to catch you off guard, no matter what insanity has preceded. Just when you think he's sincere, here comes his newest outrage. It's a bit of a mind game between comic and audience, our internal gatekeeper deciding what is all in good fun, no matter how vile, and what is downright cruel.
Assuming you haven't taken to the exit or lapsed into a protective coma by the aforementioned quartermark, it kind of gets giddy after a while. Somewhat inured to the incessant foulness, you laugh not at how the filmmaker constantly strives to top himself, and not at what new profanity he may unleash around the next corner, but at the idea of the process itself. Perhaps saying something, profound or not, about the human condition, it's a rather silly thing for a grown man to be pursuing, made all the more comical when you give pause to think what a fortune there is in it.
All the same, giving Cohen more credit than he is likely due, he uses the occasion to sprinkle some left-handed social observations by fiddling with the concept of environment vs. genetics. Sebastian, brought up in wealth and luxury but marked by the separation from his big bro, grows up to be "the world's greatest spy." Nobby, on the other hand, raised in the system, takes funny pride in his lower-class heritage. Living on the dole with his sweetheart, Dawn (Rebel Wilson), and their 11 illegitimate but adoring kids, he's as happy as the bedbugs he doubtlessly harbors.
But alas the football hooligan is missing one component in his otherwise hoi polloi nirvana: Sebastian. So it's all the more gratifying that, when the two are finally reunited, their glorious childhood dreams have a chance of revivification in the context of a world-saving gambit. You see, bad but powerful elitists are figuring to wipe out the Earth's poor folk with a fatal virus.
Indeed, the secret agent-silly brother scenario has been done ad nauseam, but never so nauseatingly. As its notorious elephant scene (don't ask) proves, Cohen goes where no comic actor has dared go before, and probably with good reason. Still, although certain it's our duty to warn people not to see "The Brothers Grimsby," we can't help but laugh guiltily while doing so.
"The Brothers Grimsby," rated R, is a Columbia Pictures release directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong and Rebel Wilson. Running time: 113 minutes
