Be suspicious of movies that are infamous before they even reach theaters.
The "they did what?" anticipatory glee is generally bound to produce a letdown — especially when the big joke is someone contracting a disease.
Whether the joke elicits laughs is the big question, though — one that also applies to much of the humor in the movie, which begins with a Bill Cosby jab and steamrolls from there.
The plot finds a sweet-hearted, dimwitted working-class Northern Londoner (Sacha Baron Cohen's Nobby) reunited with younger brother Sebastian (Mark Strong) after 28 years. Sebastian is now a top spy and an assassin, with a hardcore shaved head to match his ruthless attitude.
Nobby's ill-timed reunion with his long-lost kin puts Sebastian's job, and life, in jeopardy — tethering the two for the remainder of the film as they try to clear Sebastian's name and save the world.
The jester and the brain pairing is a time-tested formula that, on paper, seems foolproof. The way it's carried out here, however, feels plucked from a 1990s movie that's still experimenting with the novelty of gross-out humor, know-it-all storytelling and just how far you can coast on the charisma of a star.
Strong plays it straight but isn't nearly as memorable as Jason Statham's turn in "Spy."
Baron Cohen, who also co-wrote the movie, is sort of lovable as Nobby with his daffy, crooked-toothed smile, Oasis hair, teeny potbelly, and grungy socks and sports sandals.
Nobby is such an earnest dolt that even the Cosby joke is almost OK. The presumed hilarity of his preference for curvier girls (Rebel Wilson and Gabourey Sidibe among them) is similarly made more tolerable by his unending sincerity.
In fact, flashbacks to Nobby and Sebastian's hooligan youth are fairly touching and effective, too, as is the through line about class and the worthiness of Nobby's rowdy, soccer-loving, out-of-shape buddies — or, as he later puts it, "the scum who keep the `Fast & Furious' franchise alive.
But then there's a joke about pedophiles at Legoland, or an ancient "Saturday Night Live" Celebrity Jeopardy riff on the word "therapist," and your jaw is once again on the floor.
It's almost impossible to tell whether you're laughing at or with a particular party, if you're even laughing at all. Ultimately, the jokes are more stupefying than funny, and no one's anatomy is safe from a gratuitous close-up, whether it's that of a wild animal or an Oscar nominee.
Speaking of Oscar nominees, Barkhad Abdi of "Captain Phillips" even pops up for a spell as a heroin dealer.
It's hard to give yourself over to a certain type of humor when you're still recovering from the shock of what you just saw or heard.
And "The Brothers Grimsby" pushes those boundaries repeatedly.
