The Brothers Grimsby

The Brothers Grimsby will almost undoubtedly end up as the best film of 2016 in which the heroes are attacked by giant penises while hiding in an elephant’s vagina, although Terrence Malick still has a couple more movies due out this year. Directed by Louis Leterrier but guided by the nothing-sacred body humor of star and co-screenwriter Sacha Baron Cohen, The Brothers Grimsby is too infantile and mean to recommend, but too embarrassingly funny to dismiss. Cohen stars as a sculpted-by-Liam-Gallagher-and-Guinness soccer hooligan who reconnects with his long-lost brother (Mark Strong), a deep-cover superspy in the middle of a dangerous mission. There are the expected fish-out-of-water beats and over-the-top gross-out gags, and the peripheral characters in this world feel like thinly sketched afterthoughts, but the film works when it focuses on Cohen and Strong. They do more with elephant semen than most actors do with Shakespeare. D.B.