Over the last few decades, there has been a push to try and copy the AUSTIN POWERS formula of being crude and clever at the same time. This is done as a spoof of a genre, though most of these films have been more crude than clever. It is projects like A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST with the Western category, and TROPIC THUNDER with the action/war genre. The newest to take on the spy theme is THE BROTHER GRIMSBY. By the time the audience leaves the theater, the popcorn won’t be the only thing that smells.
The so-called plot revolves around Carl ‘Nobby’ Butcher, an English football loving guy who lives and breathes the national team. He also has a house with a room for his brother Sebastian, who disappeared 28 years ago when they both were boys. Throughout all the struggles of Nobby’s life, he believes that his brother is still alive and will come back one day. On the other side of the plot, a spy executes a daring amount of stunts while trying to catch a bad guy, in a scene that looks lifted from something along the lines SPECTRE or THE BOURNE IDENTITY. It is a thrill a second action chunk and it is totally abandoned by director Louis Leterrier. This one scene shows that he should become an action director, though within the next hour he proves that he should never again helm a comedy. We also find out that the spy is Sebastian (Mark Strong), the long lost Butcher brother.
Eventually the two meet up at a swanky party for the charity of Rhonda George (Penelope Cruz), a billionaire philanthropist. The spy has been compromised and it looks like Sebastian has turned. He knows that someone will be out to take him down. Nobby decides that the best way to hide Sebastian is in the old neighborhood. Then we get a bunch of lower class joke set-ups but without any true payoffs. The only single bit that is funny is a banner that welcomes Sebastian home. An example of a joke that doesn’t work – one of Nobby’s kids is named Luke because they are faking his Leukemia in order to get a government check for the rest of the family.
The two men eventually are off to Africa to break the case. There we get a crude Texas switch comedy bit and then one of the crudest things one will see on a movie screen… ever. (SPOILER ALERT) The two Butcher Brothers have to hide from a group of bad guys. They do this by climbing up the nether-regions of a female elephant. It is up close and graphic. Then a male elephant hops on and does what a male elephant does to a female elephant. The audience is subjected to animal genitals fondled in an up-close and personal manner, including ‘the money shot’ as they say in adult films. Yes, it is just that gross and it is that graphic. (END SPOILER)
If the plot feels similar, it is lifted whole cloth from THE NAKED GUN… but it is not even that clever. Heck, it’s not even as clever as SPY HARD. To say that three people actually wrote this screenplay is an insult to real writers. Monkeys throwing excrement against a wall would have more brilliance than this trio. Rebel Wilson seems to be in the film for only one reason, to make fat jokes at her frame. She is a very talented triple-threat, but THE BROTHER GRIMSBY totally wastes her gifts. It is just moments of ‘let’s laugh at the fat girl’ at the expense of any semblance of plot. Gabourey Sidibe is used in much the same way, making jokes about her weight. In a movie where every woman is ridiculed, it comes about in its most vile way against heavy women.
The luckiest actress is Isla Fisher. They make her look so dowdy that she is unrecognizable in the role of Jodie, the analyst who helps out the super spy. It was like the role that Melissa McCarthy had in the beginning of SPY, just not as glamorous. Isla is easily forgotten, which could be the single best thing for her career. The biggest piling on has to be placed on the shoulders of Sacha Baron Cohen. He knows how to make a brilliant comedy film, as he did so with BORAT. But in the many years since then, he has either lost his touch, or maybe he was just a one hit wonder. If he were a female comic he would have been dismissed and gone from the general public many films ago. THE BROTHER GRIMSBY is not only the worst film of 2016 so far, it should easily top the Ten Worst of the year. It is neither clever nor funny, just crude and filthy. If you thought BRUNO was bad, this is about a hundred times worse.
