On this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the team reviews The Brothers Grimsby — also released as Grimsby — Louis Leterrier’s 2016 spy-action gross-out comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong.
In this episode
- England week, recorded in the heat with the dads trying to finish before England kick off
- Pete’s return to the podcast, Dan’s absence, and Reegs charging the show with bringing the game into disrepute
- Top 5 England, interpreted very loosely and therefore correctly
- English stereotypes in film: bad teeth, bad food, villains, tea, class, accents, and mayonnaise in every supermarket sandwich
- Fawlty Towers, Basil Fawlty, “Don’t mention the war”, John Cleese, Connie Booth, and only needing 12 episodes to become immortal
- Sidey’s childhood Morris dancing, complete with bells, sticks, pagan energy, and possible darkness
- Cris’s first memory of England via Italia ’90, Gary Lineker, black-and-white TV, Romania after the revolution, and the schoolboy joy of Lineker’s unfortunate bowel incident
- Dave England from Jackass, yellow snow cones, giant hands, Bam Margera, and whether Jackass has run its course
- Reegs on Chris Morris as a great English exponent of absurd, shocking satire with moral integrity: The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam, Nathan Barley, Four Lions, and The Day Shall Come
- Films and figures with England / Englishness attached: This Is England, The English Patient, Hugh Grant, Sting, Guy Ritchie, Lock, Stock, Snatch, Sherlock Holmes, Blackadder, London black cabs, fake taxis, and World Cup songs
- Cris nominating James Bond as the foreigner’s English archetype: classy, gadget-heavy, car-driving, womanising, and very stereotypical
- Reegs choosing The Impossible Job, Graham Taylor, Ronald Koeman, “Do I not like that?”, and English football’s appetite for destroying managers
- Pete inflicting Grimsby / The Brothers Grimsby on the group
- The dads’ expectations going in, Sidey deliberately avoiding it, and the reputation of the film after the Rebel Wilson allegations around Sacha Baron Cohen
- Louis Leterrier’s action credentials: The Transporter, Now You See Me, The Incredible Hulk, and the surprisingly strong action staging here
- Scott Adkins appreciation, the “Ukrainian Ben Affleck” / Boyka chat, and calls to do an Undisputed movie
- The opening sex-in-a-bed-shop gag and the film immediately declaring its level of subtlety
- Nobby’s Grimsby life: 11 children, one grandchild called Django Unchained, a son called Skeletor, and the “Luke because he’s got leukemia” joke
- Mark Strong as Sebastian, MI6’s most lethal agent, and the very good first-person action sequence influenced by Hardcore Henry director Ilya Naishuller
- Isla Fisher, Ian McShane, Penélope Cruz, Rebel Wilson, Gabourey Sidibe, Johnny Vegas, Ricky Tomlinson, and Daniel Radcliffe / Donald Trump legal-disclaimer jokes
- The brothers’ backstory: orphaned, separated in childhood, and Nobby sacrificing his own future so Sebastian can be adopted
- The movie’s attempt at sincerity, and why it is mostly undercut by everything else being relentlessly stupid
- The poisoned dart sequence, the “left testicle” escalation, and Mark Strong playing total nonsense completely straight
- The pre-ejaculate callback and the point at which Pete’s wife apparently started laughing properly
- The South Africa section, heroin detour, seduction misunderstanding, and blocked toilet gag
- The elephant sequence: foreshadowed by National Geographic, then pushed to an absolutely filthy breaking point
- Penélope Cruz’s villain plot: a “World Cure” scheme that is actually a eugenics / population-control virus targeting the poor via the World Cup final
- The dads questioning the film’s attempted class satire when so much of the movie has already made working-class Grimsby the punchline
- The pitch invasion climax, fireworks, the virus in the rockets, and the brothers taking one for the team
- The hospital ending, elephant semen as accidental antidote / skin-elasticity miracle, and the pan-pipe gag
- Whether the film is actually good, or just so committed to its stupidity that it becomes funny
Bad Dads consensus
- Sidey: Expected to hate it, laughed much more than expected, and lands on a strong recommend despite admitting the film probably is awful in many obvious ways.
- Pete: Also gives a strong recommend, arguing that while lots of it is preposterous and eye-rollingly stupid, the bits that hit deliver proper belly laughs.
- Reegs: Notes that it is not nearly as sharp satirically as Borat or Brüno, and that the class satire is muddled, but agrees the extremity and straight-faced delivery make it work more often than expected.
- Cris: Enjoys the ridiculousness and joins in the disbelief at just how far the film pushes each gross-out set piece.
Final take
The Brothers Grimsby is not elegant, subtle, or especially coherent as satire. It is, however, a film with surprisingly solid action, Mark Strong treating absolute filth like a serious spy thriller, and Sacha Baron Cohen pushing every joke past the point of taste and into a kind of horrible inevitability. The dads feared the worst, laughed anyway, and somehow ended up recommending it.
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