Grimsby

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest comic creation is a working-class buffoon from Humberside whose reunion with his long-lost brother (Mark Strong) pitches him into the high-stakes world of international espionage. With his Liam Gallagher haircut, tattoos, England football shirt and nine children, Nobby Butcher is a grotesquely exaggerated working-class cliché, and the film seeks to combine laughter and action while placing him in a fish-out-of-water adventure with Strong's straight-faced super-spy - the sibling who was taken out of care and raised by posh parents. While the James Bond-style international set pieces prove functional, the remainder too often mistakes extreme vulgarity for genuine wit (one safari sequence virtually beggars description), while saddling comedienne Rebel Wilson and Precious star Gabourey Sidibe in thankless one-joke roles. Throughout, Baron Cohen treads a fine line of standing up for the disenfranchised while relentlessly mocking the exploits of the underclass. It's hard to know whether he's laughing with or at his characters when there are so few laughs at all.