If you don’t like a movie, bail. This is hard to do in the cinema – getting up and walking out after twenty minutes of disappointment and annoyance is like throwing your hard-earned cash away. So you sit there to the bitter end to get your money’s worth. I thoroughly recommend breaking international copyright law and sampling Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest ‘The Brothers Grimsby’ before investing in a timeshare multiplex seat.
There’s a disconnected tone to the thing that’s immediately apparent. Thematically, it’s a ‘secret agent spoof’. Well, let’s think … that first Charlie’s Angels movie was entertaining enough. Mike Myers camped it up to good effect. And then there’s … Johnny English? It’s not exactly a successful genre, and needs a certain style to pull off. The ‘Flint’ series probably did it best, back in the sixties. As an idea for a new movie, it’s pretty desperate.
Barry Cohen (he’ll always be Barry to me) crowbars in an idiotic brother for our secret agent, from Chavtastic Grimsby. That’s the plot, as I understand it. Muttonchopped Ingerlaand supporter finds his long-lost brother (Barry seems to want a bit of heartfelt human emotion in here as well – ironically handled, of course) to be a compromised secret agent on a mission to … well, you know the rest.
Barry gets it spectacularly wrong in every respect. It’s a mess. You can imagine how it was written. Barry and a few acolytes slouched in armchairs, yokking it up. “What’s even more outrageous than shooting a black orphan in a wheelchair?” “We’ll give Daniel Radcliffe aids!!!” “HAHAHA!!!”
I bailed during the scene when Chav’s wife comes home. She’s fat, see. Which is funny, right? She’s very fat, which makes it very funny. She opens her thighs on the World Of Leather couch, and we hear a small, wet, fart. “It’s all right,” she says, “it weren’t me arse.” Cue another, louder, fart. “But that was.” Shocked? Outraged? Offended? None of the above. Crucially, the ‘amused’ box goes unchecked, too. But then Secret Agent Bro makes his appearance, and he, eyeing her girth, offers her congratulations and asks when it’s “due”. You, dear reader, may be ahead of this scene already. Maybe you can already hear our Chavette’s hilarious rejoinder? “Oh, I’m not pregnant,” she says, “I’m just fuckin’ fat.” I noted a “beat” at this point – a silence built into the script to allow for audience reaction. Presumably laughter, not the sound of seats banging up in the multiplex. I used Barry’s thoughtful pause to click the quit button on VLC.
Tig, of course, will set himself to watching it six times before he allows himself to formulate an opinion. Maybe we should wait for his review.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Here’s the Rotten Tomatoes critics’ consensus (38%):
“The Brothers Grimsby showers viewers with a steady stream of Sacha Baron Cohen’s edgy humor, but too many gags hit the wrong side of the line between audacious and desperate.”
Oh … edgy. It’s about as edgy as a snooker ball.
Jeff says
For those watching in black & white, the brown is behind the pink.
Whaaaaat?????
Tiggerlion says
I’m one of those who listen to Kermode and Mayo without any intention of going to the movies. I have accidentally ended up there once or twice. I’m always disappointed. The last film I actually enjoying watching in a cinematic theatre was Bladerunner. I’m in the there-has-been-nothing-any-good-since-the-early-nineteen-eighties-come-on-name-one-just-one camp when it comes to movies. The only film I’ve seen six times is, appropriately, Groundhog Day. It grates after a while.
I wouldn’t bail on Barry. I wouldn’t be there in the first place.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Trailers generally have that effect on me. Especially the ones edited down to single-second flashes of action and soundbites – “let’s do this, people!”
JustB says
The only thing he’s done which even stands up to one viewing was Borat, and I’d never want to see that again. Ali G was shite, on TV and film (a caricature of something that doesn’t exist – that’s not even what the SE “urban” accent even sounds like). I didn’t even bother with Bruno (gay fashionistas: what a cutting-edge target).
This Grimsby one – the trailer couldn’t even raise a smile and presumably those were the best bits the cutters could find.
It seems a bit sad that the best this intelligent man can manage is unfunny gross-out humour. I LIKE a good shock-joke, but his are all attempted shock and no joke.
Gary says
I found Ali G frequently hilarious, as were Borat and Boris. The Dictator was appalling though. And this new one looks even worse.
JustB says
Ali G just annoyed me – although some of the early interview sketches were very funny back when the subjects weren’t in on the joke.
But the persona was irritating because even the most egregious wigga alive didn’t ever talk like that. Wiggas don’t try to affect a Jamaican accent: there’s a very specific black London accent which they do instead. Observational comedy only works when the observations are accurate.
Johnny Concheroo says
“Wiggas don’t try to affect a Jamaican accent”.
Have you even heard Professor Green and/or Tim Westwood?
JustB says
Which begs the question, have you ever met a Jamaican person?
Johnny Concheroo says
Yes, of course. But in more general terms, have you ever heard a white person trying to sound like a black person?
Johnny Concheroo says
And from Wiki:
“Baron Cohen has stated that BBC Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood was an influence on the development of his character (Ali G) – Westwood used to host Radio 1’s Rap Show and speaks in a faux Multicultural London English and hip hop dialect”
JustB says
That’s true – Westwood does speak like that – a London multiculti faux-gangsta voice with a heavy American flavour. If Baron Cohen was aiming for that, he does a very, very bad job of it with all his cod-Jamaican “‘ear mi now”/ “me Julie” / “booyakasha” shtick. Tim Westwood doesn’t sound like Ali G at all.
Which brings me back to my original point: Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t very good.
Johnny Concheroo says
I accept SBC is probably not doing a very good job of it. But then again, he is exaggerating something which is already beyond parody.
Sewer Robot says
But is SBC attempting a forensic satirical deconstruction? Seem to me he just finds the idea of Westwood the stuff of comedy. All his characters seem to be very broadly drawn like those from the seventies (might explain why they better suit an international movie audience?).
Saying he’s not doing Westwood right is a bit like saying I’ve never seen Craig David with a kestrel on his arm..
Johnny Concheroo says
Quite. Westwood and his ilk already sound ridiculous, so SBC is just taking that to the extreme. We hear what he’s lampooning, even if it’s not exactly the same as the source. Impersonations are always caricatures.
JustB says
You’re right, of course. I’m wrong to find it annoying. Man’s a genius.
But seriously, can you imagine how iritating it would be for a northerner if a comedian satirised the trope of the “professional Yorkshireman” but did it in a voice like Peter Kay? It’s just lazy.
JustB says
Re. Borat – there were some hilarious bits, but it was 50% funny, 50% “oh for god’s sake stop trying to shock me”.
chiz says
I really like The Dictator. It’s a bit more gentle than his usual style and it’s got a great deconstruction of capitalism at the end
JustB says
Ah that’s interesting. Will have to check that out. He’s done so much to put me off him, though.
Vulpes Vulpes says
I’m with you Bob, he put me off a long time ago, and I wouldn’t ever pay to see anything else he does. In fact, I wouldn’t even invest any more time, let alone money.
H.P. Saucecraft says
No, no, no. You’re thinking of Ted II.
SteveT says
I like the Dictator too – much funnier than both Borat and Bruno – Bruno was pretty dire to be honest. SBC is undoubtedly both funny and intelligent but his continual attempt to push at what he sees as ‘boundaries’ wears a bit thin after a while. I saw the trailer for the Grimsby film and was surprised it didn’t go straight to DVD. It’s a shame because I think it is a waste of his talent.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
It sometimes happens when you are wandering through the Eel Market – “how bad can it be, give me one of those, please”
I lasted 17 minutes less than you HP…
chiz says
This was one of those cases where the trailer had exactly the opposite effect to the one intended. The recent Dad’s Army film too – two minutes of ‘highlights’ convinced me I didn’t need to see either of them.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Somehow my reply to this got pasted onto tig’s “don’t get out much any more” comment.
Tiggerlion says
I get out loads. I just don’t go to the movies. Never really did.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Going to the movies was never really “going out”, was it? It was more like going in. And I never saw a single movie that was improved by the presence of the audience.
deramdaze says
Cinema needs another Secret Agent spoof (50 years too late?) like T.V. needs another Hospital drama.
I, too, listen to Kermode and Mayo with little interest in actually going to the cinema.
The best films I’ve seen recently were all on the brilliant ‘Talking Pictures’ channel (‘Accident’; a film noir – best I’ve ever seen – from the early 50s called ‘The Narrow Margin’; and a whole load of pop group movies, most with Steve Marriott in them!) and I don’t think Kermode has mentioned it once in his ‘T.V. film’ slot.
hubert rawlinson says
Talking Pictures has some great films on. Though I know now I never need to see another Freddie and the Dreamers film again.
ianess says
What channel?
hubert rawlinson says
It’s a channel called Talking Pictures it’s on 81 on freeview, if that helps.
ianess says
I have Sky and can’t find it.
count jim moriarty says
Channel 343 on Sky.
ianess says
You beauty! Already set ‘Record’ function for A Swingin’ Summer’ – Raquel Welch debut.
Johnny Concheroo says
Surely not? The man who is tired of “What a Crazy World”, “Just for You”, “The Cuckoo Patrol” and “Every Day’s A Holiday” (US title “Seaside Swingers”) is tired of life.
Rob C says
You’d have to pay me, handsomely, to sit through any of this dude’s unfunny drivel.
H.P. Saucecraft says
People will, though, Rob. It won’t be a cash cow for the studios but several thousand people (industry insider estimate) will pay their own money out of their own pockets to watch it and forty minutes of advertising and trailers in a cinema that smells of fart. And they will laugh and be happy.
Rufus T Firefly says
Quite. So far it’s made $25 million. However the budget (hard to believe) was around $35 million. It might break even after being released on ancillaries (DVD, TV, cable and so on). Grim indeed. But The Dictator was a sizeable hit and Borat was huge, so BSC will be back.
Rob C says
Good for them.
(There’s no accounting for taste).
Black Celebration says
When they do a remake like the Dads Army one – wouldn’t it be good, right, if they approached it totally differently?
What if it was a gritty wartime drama not played for laughs – but the same characters dealing, perhaps quite badly, with real wartime situations? I think that they could be portrayed as heroic and the odd catchphrase like “are you sure that’s wise?” can be put into a life-or-death context.
Mike_H says
That’s actually quite a good idea for a spin-off.
OTOH, I’m not sure a played-for-laughs Hinterland spin-off would work.
davebigpicture says
That was Went The Day Well wasn’t it?
niscum says
So Haberdashers and Oxbridge rich boy Sacha taking the piss out of yet another soft minority target then?
When’s he going to do a spoof piss take of rich, privately educated Jews?
I’ll watch that one!
Gary says
I think it’s a shame he’s not going to play Freddie Mercury. His looks and character make him ideal for the part. I think it’s going to be Ben Whishaw now.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Why is he playing Ben Whishaw?
JustB says
God can you imagine the horror? “Sacha, you are not playing Freddie for laughs: this isn’t one of your ‘hilarious’ gross-out films, you know. There will not – repeat, NOT – be a dwarf-rimming scene in this movie.”
JustB says
And now I have “Don’t. Stop me NOW / I’m having such a good time / I’m rimming a dwarf” stuck in my head for the day.
Damn.
Bingo Little says
I want to rim dwarves. I want to rim dwarves. God knows. God knows, I want to rim dwarves.
Bingo Little says
Oops – wrong thread!
Gary says
Predictions after Brexit?
JustB says
Beelzebub / has the devil rimmed a dwarf for me / for me / for MEEEEEEEEE?
Mama. Just rimmed a dwarf. Put my tongue against… [that’s enough: Ed]
Uncle Wheaty says
He was good as the Time character in Alice Through The Looking Glass.