Grimsby, film review: It’s grim up north

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest comic creation isn’t quite a match for Ali G or Borat but there are plenty of wonderfully bad-taste moments in this hilarious spy thriller, says David Sexton
David Sexton26 February 2016

Sacha Baron Cohen’s classic comedy creations — Ali G, Borat, Brüno — all depended to some extent on taking in unsuspecting dupes on film, whether they be vain British politicians or over-hospitable Americans, or at least getting away with performing his outrageous characters in compromisingly public situations.

Possibly my favourite such enormity is the rodeo scene in Salem Civic Center, Virginia, where Borat, welcomed as a rare visitor, goes out solo into the arena, in a stars-and-stripes shirt and is enthusiastically cheered by the audience as he praises the “war of terror ... May George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq! May you destroy that country so that for the next thousand years not even a single lizard will survive in their desert!”, the enthusiasm only curdling when he sings what he says is the Kazakh national anthem to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner: “Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world/All other countries is the home of the gay...” But there are plenty of others to treasure.

That trick has proved increasingly hard for him to pull off as he has grown more famous and Grimsby, which doesn’t attempt any such bluffing, isn’t a match for them, it has to be admitted. Still, in a different mode, mainly gross-out and stupidity, it’s consistently funny and it doesn’t outstay its welcome at just 83 minutes. Those reviewers who have reckoned it worth just one or two stars value their sensitivities over a laff.

Baron Cohen plays Nobby Butcher, a proud citizen of Grimsby, a town that makes Hull look slick and metropolitan. It doesn’t even get a good report in the Orkney Saga written c. 1230: “Vér hfum vaðnar leirur vikur fimm megingrimmar; saurs vara vant, er várum, viðr, í Grímsbœ miðjum” which, for those whose Norse is a little rusty, translates as “We have waded in mire for five terrible weeks; there was no lack of mud where we were, in the middle of Grimsby.”

For international release, however, due possibly to the town’s lack of worldwide brand recognition, the film has been retitled The Grimsby Brothers, vaguely evoking The Brothers Grimm instead. Shame!

Nobby, who has a decent belly, many misspelt tattoos, a sub-Liam Gallagher haircut (yes, it is possible), teats constantly on a beer bottle and dresses in footie wear, may be a feckless benefits cheat but he is a strong family man. He has nine children, vogueishly named (an infant grandchild is called Gangnam Style) whom he loves very much in his own way. In an early scene, when one of the youngest runs out of puff getting up the stairs, he says: “I told you not to smoke.”

“I thought you just meant crack,” the nipper replies.

“At your age, you should just be vaping,” Nobby tells him reprovingly.

He also dotes on his generously proportioned girlfriend Dawn (Rebel Wilson), who thinks of herself as “Sharon Stallone in Basic Instinct” and doesn’t wear panties, so Nobby can get down to a good Grimsby breakfast any time.

Yet, perfection though this may be, there’s still a gaping hole in Nobby’s life — his younger brother, whom he hasn’t seen for decades, having been separated as orphaned kids when he was adopted by rich foster parents, while Nobby stayed in the care of Grimsby social services. Nobby misses him every day, keeping his bedroom as a shrine, full of posters of his macho role models such as Freddie Mercury and George Michael.

This brother, Sebastian, is now a top, James Bond-style MI6 assassin (played agreeably straight by Mark Strong, channelling Vin Diesel), whom we see at work in a genuinely exciting opening action sequence, sharply edited. For the key decision that makes Grimsby work is that it is not a spoof of a spy thriller. Instead, it’s a perfectly real spy thriller (as real as any of them, anyway) into the middle of which Nobby blunders, almost as though this thriller was the real world element otherwise lacking.

Brothers in arms: Sebastian (Mark Strong) and Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen) MovieStore/Rex
Moviestore/REX

A lot of the credit for that must be down to the Luc Besson-school French director Louis Leterrier, who made not only the first two Transporter films with Jason Statham, The Incredible Hulk and Clash of the Titans but the marvellous Unleashed, a martial arts film set in Glasgow starring Jet Li and Bob Hoskins (possibly one of my top 10 films, a useful counter-balance to number one, Au Hasard Balthazar).

Nobby discovers that Sebastian is going to be at a conference in London where glamorous philanthropist Rhonda George (Penélope Cruz) is announcing a global health crusade (“we will save the world”), assisted by a perfectly sick little boy (“mummy was Jewish, daddy was Palestinian”) with inherited Aids, and goes south to look for him. But just when Sebastian is taking aim to prevent an assassination, Nobby finds him at last, flings his arms around him and provokes a disastrous miss, especially tastelessly disastrous for Daniel Radcliffe, as it happens.

MI6 believes its agent has turned rogue, so he has to flee, reluctantly accepting Nobby’s offer of a hideaway back home in Grimsby. “You probably won’t recognise it since it was gentrified,” warns Nobby. Rumours that some of the grimmest Grimsby scenes, a tip festooned with lard-buckets boozing, shagging and pissing all over the place, were actually filmed in Tilbury should be discounted, even if true.

Unfortunately, the warmhearted and mostly bare-chested, since so well self-insulated, locals haven’t quite grasped the concept of going undercover, decorating the outside of the pub with a banner reading “Welcome home, Grimsby’s very own spy! Shhh!”

'Those reviewers who have reckoned it worth just one or two stars value their sensitivities over a laff'

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Soon, Nobby and Sebastian are off again, this time to South Africa, where it seems a nefarious organisation called Maelstrom is planning a deadly viral attack. Here, after a bit of a mix-up, Nobby has to take Sebastian’s place as a supercool agent — and some extremely bad taste episodes ensue, first involving the sizeable star of Precious, Gabourey Sidibe, and then a herd of elephants, among whom Nobby and Sebastian seek refuge, very intimate refuge, from their assailants.

Elephant bukkake has never been so forcefully rendered (for those who don’t know the word, don’t bother to look it up — enough to know it’s very much like Subbuteo). There is also a highly developed poo joke where pretty baddie Annabelle Wallis gets quite the wrong end of the stick...

With minor roles for Ricky Tomlinson and Johnny Vegas, Grimsby is just too fond of its subjects to hit them really hard. Nobby even makes a climatic speech defending his people as great scum, “the scum that keep the Fast & Furious franchise alive”.

But Baron Cohen plays good-hearted but not big-brained Nobby very intently. There’s a lovely low-key moment where, sharing a bath after their jumbo mishap, Sebastian wonderingly remarks: “So I could have had your life?” And Nobby, almost articulately, replies: “And you could have had mine...”

Cert 15, 83 Mins

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