Gareth and I don’t get many dates these days, so when we have them they are precious and not to be wasted.  To say the last one was wasted on Grimsby would be harsh but if I had my time over I would probably do it differently.

The choice of film came down to Grimsby or Deadpool. We looked at what was on and these two were the films most likely to hit the middle ground between what we both enjoy. Action comedy is our safe zone.  Sometimes on a Friday night we can spend an agonising hour watching trailers of films on iTunes in the hopes of finding one we are both willing to try.  I think there has been a couple of times when after all that it’s got so late we give up and just watch James Corden in cars with famous people on YouTube.  It’s like searching for the Holy Grail finding a film we’re both going to equally enjoy.

We watched trailers for both Grimsby and Deadpool and essentially Grimsby won because it was on 10 minutes earlier (new babysitter – didn’t want to keep her up late), it had a plot starting in a northern city in England so we’d enjoy the cultural references and the trailer looked funny.  Gareth isn’t much into comic book films so this was a big point against Deadpool, despite Ryan Reynolds and Graham Norton professing that this one is nothing like the rest of them…

I’ve just re-watched the trailer and although it does remind you that Sacha Baron Cohen made Borat, Bruno etc. it doesn’t show any of the scenes that are exactly what I dislike about all his previous work – that really cringe worthy, so uncomfortable to watch, way over the line comedy that is just downright offensive. I forgot, or maybe I hoped it was going to be different. My bad.

The trailer shows it as a funny action movie that makes fun of all those spy movies we love so much.  Sort of like Austin Powers.  Well I suppose in a way this is that, but just so much harder to keep your eyes open for!

In the words of Mark Strong, the premise of the film is “idiot crashes spy movie”.  Two brothers in care when they were young boys are split up.  One is adopted by wealthy benefactors and evidently has been given all the opportunities in life to become a top assassin for MI6.  The other left in foster care in Grimsby, grows up to be an uneducated, obsessive football fan, father of about 10 children, living in squalor and yet very content, save for missing his younger brother.

Somehow the older brother, Nobby tracks down his highly undercover younger brother Sebastian and all the fun and antics follow.  It is funny, I did laugh several times but Gareth and I both had to look away so much at scenes with testicles filled with poisonous darts and Nobby and his girlfriend getting it on in extremely inappropriate settings.

If you are a Borat fan then I think you will probably love this.  I personally felt violated by the end of it and wish I could un-see some stuff.  It is really funny and Cohen is a clever writer, but it just goes too far over the edge for me.  Apparently I’m not alone as it’s his least successful film so far, which is sad.  Would love him to write a comedy that doesn’t have all the extreme shock stuff in, I reckon I’d love it!

I’m giving this 5/10.