With a unique blend of English football fandom and espionage, Sacha Baron Cohen brings a new flavour to the cinema table in Grimsby. With the legacy of Borat on its shoulders, does this new addition to the Cohen menu leave a good taste in the mouth or is it just another Dictator?
Thankfully, for the majority it’s the former. Grimsby is in your face, outrageous, and delightfully funny.
Cohen is well known for his unusual methods for comedy, stretching the lines of what most might deem appropriate and then taking a full leap further into previously restricted zones. Grimsby doesn’t disappoint in this regard so it’s likely the film will have more than a few detractors. Those uncomfortable with seeing children getting shot or jokes about HIV should not go, of course if you’re watching a Cohen film you will probably know what you are getting into.
Directed by Louis Leterrier, the film follows the reunion of two brothers separated in childhood. Carl Allen ‘Nobby’ Butcher is portrayed by Cohen as a British football hooligan with eleven children while his younger brother Sebastian Graves, played by Mark Strong, is an MI6 agent. When Nobby finally tracks down his brother, he inadvertently causes Sebastian to bungle his job and accidentally give Daniel Radcliffe aids. Things get hairy from there. With Graves disavowed from his agency and bad guys on all sides he has no one to depend on but his idiot brother Nobby.
Besides Cohen and Strong, Grimsby has a strong supporting cast including Penelope Cruz, Rebel Wilson, Isla Fisher and Ian McShane. Wilson in particular does a good job as Dawn Grobham, Nobby’s hooligan partner and mother to his many many children. Sadly however my praise for the supporting cast ends there, because they are given so little chance to shine. Cruz, who plays Rhonda George, disappears from the film after the beginning only to reappear at the end when we have long forgotten about her. Isla Fisher, Graves’s only contact within the agency after his discharge, gives advice from the sidelines and that is all. I sigh as I recall all that went wrong with Ian McShane’s character. McShane plays the head of MI6 (they did not even give his character a name)but is all but ignored; he has few lines and is involved in fewer scenes before being practically phased out of the film entirely. McShane had no chances to leave a mark upon the film and I feel Grimsby missed out on a golden opportunity because of it. Of course the lack of supporting presence in the film is largely due to the fact that Cohen and Strong hog the spotlight.
Cohen and Strong give solid performances. They show that the bonds of brotherhood is a chain fraught with challenges. Despite being a dim-wit Nobby’s heart is always in the right place and he proves without doubt that he would do anything for his brother (sucking venom from out of his brother’s testicle for a start). Sebastian on the other hand is lost after his reunion, lost in his brothers world, a world he would have lived in had things turned out differently. He struggles with the idea of simply returning to a way of life that had been lost to him for so long. The brothers who were so similar as children seem too different to ever come together. The underlying conflict between the brothers is more than simply the fact that one is a hooligan and the other a spy and the detail and effort that went into its formation is admirable.
There is plenty of mirth to be had in Grimsby, the films fixation on Daniel Radcliffe in particular is as ludicrously funny as it is random. Humour takes a wide variety of forms; from satire, to being cleverly witty, to being downright gross. It can be hard for some to enjoy the brand of comedy Cohen provides, I do not doubt many if not most people would consider it ‘way over the line’ offensive but then, those people most likely do not enjoy watching Cohen’s works. It takes a certain ‘mettle’ to appreciate a Cohen film and if you have what it takes then you will have fun here.
I was happily surprised by how much I enjoyed this roller coaster of a movie. A key indicator of success for a film like this is how many laughs it can induce upon the audience, and I laughed often.