I haven't put a lot of thought into what might've been the worst movie I saw in 2016 but I'm pretty sure THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is a frontrunner. I really wasn't sure what to expect from it and I hadn't read much on it before watching, so it's pretty safe to say I was caught way, way off guard. It's a comedy about two brothers. One happens to be a spy with MI-6 and the other is a dimwitted soccer hooligan. It stars Mark Strong and Sascha Baron Cohen in the lead roles. I imagine you can figure out who's who. Now, I'm familiar with Cohen's work. I really liked BORAT and I didn't hate BRÜNO, but this wasn't one of his mock documentaries where he goes to insane lengths to mess with ordinary folk through a character. I don't know what I expected this to be any different; maybe it was the inclusion of Strong, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane, and Isla Fisher in the cast. Not only is this movie on par with Cohen's other outrageous movies; it also gives full effort to become his grossest yet. I'm not adverse to this. I can enjoy gross-out humor when it's done right. I own all three of the JACKASS films and watch them again every few years for a good laugh. The problem with THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is that it sacrifices everything else for the sake of its incessant gags, most of which are something going in/coming out of bodies.
I had to check out the writers on this film. I wanted to know who was responsible, and the answers surprised me a bit. Obviously Cohen was involved, and writer Peter Baynham has collaborated with him before on BORAT and BRÜNO so we know he's astute at shock humor. He's also had a hand in writing for "I'm Alan Partridge", one of Steve Coogan's TV series and a pretty consistently funny one too. So the man has some talent. The third screenwriter, Phil Johnston, was also one of two screenwriters on ZOOTOPIA. Freaking ZOOTOPIA. So there's actual talent here and, for whatever reason, it doesn't shine through. To be fair, there are some good gags in this movie. I don't know why I laughed as much as I did at the Daniel Radcliffe bit and then laughed harder at the callback at the end of the film. But the bad outweighs the good. For every joke that'll elicit a legitimate laugh from me, there's three that fall flat and they'll telegraph the gag coming from a mile away. For example, the film's biggest bit involves an elephant. Early in the film, Nobby (Cohen) and his family are watching a nature documentary where he quotes a fact he learned about the internal size of a female elephant's well, you can use context clues to figure it out. It's sort of weird throwaway line; weird enough to flag that it'll obviously come into play later. And it does, to an absolutely insane degree.
Chances are good that the elephant gag is the one memory you'll walk away from this movie remembering. That and maybe the, ugh, caterpillar venom scene. That's because literally everything else about this movie is forgettable. The plot is simple and stupid. Nobby and Sebastian, orphans, have been separated since childhood. Nobby never gave up on his belief his brother would return (as explained in clunky exposition at the start of the film). We come to discover Sebastian has gone on to become an MI6 agent with the action hero skills of Craig-era James Bond or Jason Bourne. Nobby finds Sebastian in the middle of a mission, causes him to botch it, and Sebastian is framed as a renegade and finds himself the target of his own organization. Nobby and Sebastian go on the run to clear his name and complete the mission. Lazily-written antics ensue and the movie closes with Sebastian's acceptance of his blue-collar origins with fireworks in anuses. Again, most of the jokes in this movie revolve around something going in or coming out of a body. The movie is destined to be forgotten as one of Cohen's lesser works and Strong has hopefully learned to stick with KINGSMAN for his action fix. McShane, Cruz, and the rest should be fine, as I'd completely forgotten they were in this movie when I sat down to watch it a second time (I wanted to give it a fair chance and ensure it wasn't just a poor first impression).
THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY isn't unforgivably bad. I'm sure it'll find some sort of audience and develop a minor fan base for the extreme levels they're willing to go in this film. I'm guilty of sharing with friends as with an insistence that "You have to see this movie. It's just bonkers." I'm sure most would agree it's in no sense a "good" movie, but it's primo material to entertain on a night when no one's sober and easy laughs are best.
I had to check out the writers on this film. I wanted to know who was responsible, and the answers surprised me a bit. Obviously Cohen was involved, and writer Peter Baynham has collaborated with him before on BORAT and BRÜNO so we know he's astute at shock humor. He's also had a hand in writing for "I'm Alan Partridge", one of Steve Coogan's TV series and a pretty consistently funny one too. So the man has some talent. The third screenwriter, Phil Johnston, was also one of two screenwriters on ZOOTOPIA. Freaking ZOOTOPIA. So there's actual talent here and, for whatever reason, it doesn't shine through. To be fair, there are some good gags in this movie. I don't know why I laughed as much as I did at the Daniel Radcliffe bit and then laughed harder at the callback at the end of the film. But the bad outweighs the good. For every joke that'll elicit a legitimate laugh from me, there's three that fall flat and they'll telegraph the gag coming from a mile away. For example, the film's biggest bit involves an elephant. Early in the film, Nobby (Cohen) and his family are watching a nature documentary where he quotes a fact he learned about the internal size of a female elephant's well, you can use context clues to figure it out. It's sort of weird throwaway line; weird enough to flag that it'll obviously come into play later. And it does, to an absolutely insane degree.
Chances are good that the elephant gag is the one memory you'll walk away from this movie remembering. That and maybe the, ugh, caterpillar venom scene. That's because literally everything else about this movie is forgettable. The plot is simple and stupid. Nobby and Sebastian, orphans, have been separated since childhood. Nobby never gave up on his belief his brother would return (as explained in clunky exposition at the start of the film). We come to discover Sebastian has gone on to become an MI6 agent with the action hero skills of Craig-era James Bond or Jason Bourne. Nobby finds Sebastian in the middle of a mission, causes him to botch it, and Sebastian is framed as a renegade and finds himself the target of his own organization. Nobby and Sebastian go on the run to clear his name and complete the mission. Lazily-written antics ensue and the movie closes with Sebastian's acceptance of his blue-collar origins with fireworks in anuses. Again, most of the jokes in this movie revolve around something going in or coming out of a body. The movie is destined to be forgotten as one of Cohen's lesser works and Strong has hopefully learned to stick with KINGSMAN for his action fix. McShane, Cruz, and the rest should be fine, as I'd completely forgotten they were in this movie when I sat down to watch it a second time (I wanted to give it a fair chance and ensure it wasn't just a poor first impression).
THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY isn't unforgivably bad. I'm sure it'll find some sort of audience and develop a minor fan base for the extreme levels they're willing to go in this film. I'm guilty of sharing with friends as with an insistence that "You have to see this movie. It's just bonkers." I'm sure most would agree it's in no sense a "good" movie, but it's primo material to entertain on a night when no one's sober and easy laughs are best.