The Brothers Grimsby (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Follow Genre: Action Comedy
Director: Louis Leterrier
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 83 minutes

The Brothers Grimsby (Blu-ray) – Movie Review

Site Score
8.0
Good: Humor, Solid combination of action and comedy
Bad: Certainly not for everyone, Sometimes a bit too dirty just for the sake of it
User Score
7.7
(3 votes)
Click to vote
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Rating: 7.7/10 (3 votes cast)

Sacha Baron Cohen has always played rather controversial roles, be it Borat, Ali G or Bruno. Nonetheless, it has been several years since he last starred in the lead of a movie that suits him perfectly, namely one with slapstick humor, tasteless smut which he magically converts to something funny, and of course, a character that falls prey to a certain stereotype. This time Cohen is converted to an English hooligan that could be considered a textbook example.

The Brothers Grimsby Banner

Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen) leads the perfect life in Grimsby as he goes from one welfare cheque to  another, to support his eleven children and the love of his life Dawn (Revel Wilson). He enjoys getting piss-drunk at the bar, spending time with his kids and perhaps most of all, watching soccer hoping England will win the 2016 world cup. Nonetheless, dimwitted as Nobby may be, there is one thing he has never gotten over, namely the fact his brother has been missing for 28 years, and to honor his memory he has left Sebastian’s (Mark Strong) room intact. Nobby still holds hope that he will one day be reunited with his kid brother and perhaps they might even enjoy soccer together once again.

Sebastian is leading a totally different life than Nobby’s, as he’s an agent for the British secret service, MI6. He is on a mission of stopping an attack on the World Health Organization, and to do that he’ll have to attend a convention in England. For some reason, one of Nobby’s friends recognizes Sebastian and informs Nobby, who will be attending the convention as well, using a stolen ticket. When Sebastian has the attacker in his sights, Nobby hugs his long lost brother, making him shoot the envoy of peace, and the assassination on the WHO director is not prevented either. Due to this, the terrorists can keep plotting further and Sebastian is being hunted by his old agency, as he is now a suspected terrorist as well. Nobby offers to let Sebastian hide at his peculiar home, but it seems Sebastian doesn’t have that much memories left of his own brother.

The flow of this movie trots along a rather fast pace, as everything has to be handled in 83 minutes, which isn’t all that long for a movie that actually has a reasonable action packed plot. Slapstick humor and action sequences follow one another in rapid succession, making sure you can enjoy a few fighting scenes and immediately unwind with one-liners, silly situations and the contrast between Nobby and Sebastian, which ended up working perfectly for this action comedy.

Acting performances in The Brothers Grimsby are simply topnotch, not only because of the contrasting personalities of Sacha’s and Mark’s two characters, but also because of the atmosphere that is being set by those who play minor roles. The ‘extras’, be it with a few lines of spoken dialogue or not, add a certain authenticity to the movie, but all in all, it might just be Sacha with a beer belly, awful error riddled tattoos, his interpretation of Liam Gallagher’s (Oasis) haircut, while wearing flip-flops and his overall dumb mug that just seals the deal. Overall, you will not be disappointed with the acting of all the characters that will pass the revue in this rather short movie.

The special features on this Blu-ray release are pretty much a common sight on most home releases out there. There is a gag reel, some extra scenes, a making of and some other small snippets to add a bit of content to this otherwise short, yet amusing, movie. Perhaps one of the most interesting features might be how they did the ‘elephant sex scene’, no because of how foul the scene was, but how much work was actually put into making it.

Conclusion

The Brothers Grimsby (or Grimsby in other countries) is a movie that is certainly not up everyone’s alley, but it is an amusing mess nonetheless. If you can stomach a certain dirty sense of humor and a dimwitted character in combination with scenes that could actually be used in a decent action movie, this flick will surely offer you a few laughs, raised eyebrows and a fun evening. Dirty comes nowhere near to describe this movie, but amusing and well thought-out smut might just cut it.

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Rating: 7.7/10 (3 votes cast)
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The Brothers Grimsby (Blu-ray) - Movie Review, 7.7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

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