Apparently the MPAA board was asleep when they gave this movie an R rating, because this has got to be THE most raunchiness, disgusting, and most ludicrously unfunny spy comedy I’ve seen in a very long time. How it escaped an NC-17 is beyond me. But, that being said, it does sport some decent direction, so points for that.
After 28 years of separation, a chance encounter by a friend leads Nobby to find his long-lost brother at a rally for ridding the world of disease, lead by Rhonda George (Penelope Cruz). Sebastian’s mission of trying to find and take out an assassin is an epic fail as Nobby bungles his bro’s assignment and gets him accused of murder! All hell breaks loose as Sebastian’s mission is way compromised, leading the two newly reunited brothers to flee for their lives.
Trying to figure out what went wrong and who was behind the assassination plot, the brothers Butcher (well, that IS their names!) go to Africa for clues and discover, thanks to a local drug kingpin (Barkhad Abdi), that a deadly virus is going to be unleashed at the World Soccer Final in Chile.
Naturally, the boys go to Chile to stop the virus being launched into the atmosphere (via fireworks), but find out (horrors!) that it was evil Penelope all along who was behind the plot! They take out Penelope (sort of) and stop the firework missiles from igniting by. . . well, by sitting on them and letting them explode up their wazoo’s. And that’s the least offensive moment in the movie!
With a terribly mediocre and ridiculously offensive screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen and Phil Johnston, the entire existence for this film is to get from one gross-out gag to the next. And, boy! Are they ever GROSS! Each one tops the next in a game of “can you out-gross this?” The worst (and singular disgusting) deals with the guys inside an elephant and a precocious pachyderm on the prowl. How did the MPAA ever give this part an R? Seriously! There are many, many other parts that are just as bad, but it wouldn’t have so bad if any humor followed. It just wasn’t there. As an actor, Baron Cohen can be wickedly funny, but as a writer, his ‘humor’ is strictly in the toilet—literally.
The director, Louis Leterrier however, knows his stuff. The only redeeming value in this cesspool of nausea was the direction, which boasted some damn fine ‘first-person’ POV shooting (much like the upcoming Hardcore Henry movie), obviously filmed with a Go-Pro camera. He really knows how to set-up a shot and deliver some spectacular visuals; it’s a shame his talents were wasted on this schlock-fest, as were the talents of Mark Strong, who has done much better. You can see he looks mighty uncomfortable being in this movie. Hey, who could blame him!
Written by Marion Hargrove (who wrote mostly TV shows like Fantasy Island and The Waltons) and playwright Tim Kelly (who cranked out over 300 plays!), this rather sad little comedy tries way too hard to be funny, and never gets there. Bogged down with dumb dialogue, clichés of every kind, a very strange plot, and that terrible ending, make this a movie that Astin would rather forget.
The director, Richard Erdman, an accomplished actor himself, only directed two other movies and some Dick Van Dyke TV shows, so his techniques behind the camera weren’t solid. This was a shame because there was some real potential in the ludicrous script to have some crazy fun with the characters that wasn’t explored. Astin was able to spew some eloquent “cuss words” in a key scene soliloquy, but that’s about the only humorous part of the film.
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