Grimsby (2016) Film Review

Warning: this review contains spoilers. It really shouldn't matter, considering what this movie is, but I'm telling you just in case you want to see this without knowing anything...somehow. Good luck with that.

Sometimes, you see a movie and it changes you – for better or for worst. Once upon a time, I thought I had that moment in the form of The Inbetweeners 2: a movie which reviled me to my core and comparing it to "like having that first film constantly throw bodily waste into my face and rub it in". And while terrible as other films such as Pixels and Dirty Grandpa have been, none has ever been able to take the throne of 'worst film ever' away from the 2014 comedy hit. But now a new contender has entered the fray; a film which even the townspeople it's allegedly representing wanted nothing to do with; a film whose lead actor Sacha Baron Cohen has been promoting as so disgusting that TV stations can't even air clips from due to how outrageous they are; a film meant to be so good that it can be up there with other recent spy films Spectre, Kingsman and Mission: Impossible. A film that has instead broken me for what it is...

Norman "Nobby" Butcher is a man content with his life – he has a girlfriend in the form of Rebel Wilson, numerous children plus a grandchild named after pop culture such as "Gangnam Style" and "Django Unchained", and a strong support for his town and his country's football team. However, he's upset over his missing brother, who he said goodbye to at a young age due to being separated at the adoption service, so when word gets to him about where Sebastian (Mark Strong) is he immediately goes after him. Unfortunately for Sebastian, this compromises a very important mission he has, for he's in fact a secret agent unravelling a conspiracy related to Penélope Cruz's health-based ideology. Thanks to Nobby's stupidity, Sebastian must go on the run from both the assassins he was hired to stop and the organisation he works for who – save for Isla Fisher's Margaret – sending out a dangerous hitman under the name of Chilcott to take him out, under the presumption that he's, in fact, working for the enemy. And from there, reported hilarity ensues as the brothers go from London to Grimsby to South Africa and so on. 

Yep, we have a very lazy thing going on here, with the central relationship between the two brothers – separated only because of the younger Nobby letting him go and in search for him ever since (although never stating he regrets it or anything, thus making the entire film feel unstable) - being the only thing really holding it together. With the film rushing to get the two brothers together before its 80-minute runtime finishes, the entire pacing feels off and uneven as it switches quickly from scene set-ups and focuses more on the "comedy" and disgusting visuals instead of making a coherent plot nor an enticing mystery. The writers of the film (one of which being Baron Cohen) don't care about the actual story being told as it's made evident, as instead they'd rather throw possibly vital components such as character development and an actual sense of villainy in favour for a grotesque re-do of the Ace Ventura rhino birthing sequence. You can't place the boundaries of a spy movie – let alone one that's allegedly trying to be funny – without actually having an evil scheme which is known to the audience you're trying to entertain. That's bad screenwriting. 

And it'd help if the comedy was actually any good. I may be rather strict when it comes to comedies, but when you have one that bases the majority of its scenes on gay puns right from the get-go – complete with crotches being sucked and elephant genitals coming at an alarming rate – or at the expense of large women (which is where Rebel Wilson, Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe and a large number of Grimsby-based extras come in) you end up with a film which can't be classed as a film...it instead classes as an 80-minute Vine clip spliced together and with no restrictions of content. And when such gags like a mistaken identity-seduction ploy go on and on for at least 12% of the overall film and are integral to the actual story, you just sit there and wonder what you did wrong in life to suffer this way. Even the poorly-composited celebrities shoehorned in via body doubles fail because you can see how fake it is – this is a movie filled with product placement yet still looks insultingly cheap.

The only tolerable thing about Grimsby is the chemistry between Baron Cohen and Strong, which is needed when they carry the whole thing with very few scenes without their presence. Separately Strong does better because he's in his typical tough-guy persona which granted him this role, whilst Baron Cohen is barely decent when he goes solo, thanks largely to his dislikably dim-witted character and the topsy-turvy decisions he makes over the course of it all. Rebel Wilson's only contribution to the whole thing is having a better accent than she did for Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; Cruz is in the film for about 6-7 minutes in total and doesn't even do anything outside of being there for the posters; Isla Fisher is supposedly Strong's love interest and is likely only there because of her relationship with Baron Cohen; Sidibie is wasted on a single joke that never ends; Ian McShane is your typical authority figure who wants the heroes in custody and does little of interest; Johnny Vegas and various others (including Ricky Tomlinson, although he and possibly Barkhad Abdi appear to be uncredited online so I can't be certain) residing in the titular town are unbearable; Annabelle Wallis as a seducer is a waste of time; and apparently David Harewood is in it. I like Harewood, but I don't recall seeing him at all. And in case you're wondering about Sam Hazeldine as Chilcott, don't worry about it – the movie didn't. 

Not even helping Grimsby is the direction from Louis Leterrier. He's capable of good stuff, as seen in The Incredible Hulk, but here he's on standby for the POV action sequences that work well as trailer fodder but little else. The whole film looks bland and as generic as a modern FPS video game – or every non-Edgar Wright comedy – and leaves little for the eye to be appeased by; relying solely on what "art" we're graced with in the writing and acting instead of the visuals, which for a film which goes across the world you'd expect to try and make look good instead of an easy holiday for the actors. 

Grimsby is the movie that broke me. As an 83-minute movie that feels like three hours, it tries to elevate itself as righteous with commentary on the likes of Bill Cosby while making a gag about one of the townsfolk dating an underage girl and basing its entire concept on a flimsy basis which gets brushed other in favour for penis jokes. It tries to hilariously gross out its audience but instead sickens them. It's a film who's reliance on jokes about homosexuality would be better suited to a shunned YouTube video rather than a local multiplex. It's a film which made me never want to come across its actors, writers, content nor even movies as a whole again. It's the cinematic equivalent of war – giving you some form of PSTD as you leave and feeling incredibly nauseated by the very thought of it. By comparison, The Inbetweeners 2 is the Citizen Kane of comedies. Jesus Christ, this movie...1/10.