Review: 'The Brothers Grimsby' Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Penelope Cruz, Rebel Wilson, Ian McShane, More

“Borat” and “Bruno” mastermind Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy has always balanced socially conscious prankster outrageousness with puerile gross-out humor, and the star again attempts that balancing act, to mixed results, with “The Brothers Grimsby,” a spy spoof that wants to have its characters deliver preachy messages and then slap them in the face with elephant penises too. Working from the premise that nothing’s funnier than endless crotch-related jokes, each one more unnerving – and disgusting – than the last, Cohen’s latest shows its true colors early on, when it stages a failed assassination that results in Daniel Radcliffe (played by Matthew Baldwin) being infected with HIV (from a wheelchair-bound Israeli-Palestinian child, no less). Then, to further up the obscene ante, it presents an extended sight of Cohen sucking poison out of his brother Mark Strong’s testicles – a tasteless incident punctuated by Strong then depositing some pre-climax bodily fluid on Cohen’s face.

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