Sacha lives up to his tasteless standards

THERE are some hilarious episodes in Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest comedy, but also some scenes that are so defiantly tasteless they seem designed to shock, provoke, even repulse, rather than amuse.

Baron Cohen (who co-wrote and produced, although Frenchman Louis Leterrier directs) plays Nobby Butcher, a slow-witted Grimsby father-of-nine married to the highly sexed Dawn, played by the Australian Rebel Wilson, whose Lincolnshire vowels are actually a sight more accurate than Baron Cohen’s. Try as he might, he cannot master the flat A.

Nobby is a football hooligan and benefits cheat, desperate to track down his long-lost younger brother Sebastian, who was adopted by a wealthy couple from down South.

Sebastian (Mark Strong) has grown up to become one of the British secret service’s top assassins and, thanks to Nobby’s reemergence in his life, must go into hiding.

Where better to do that than down-atheel Grimsby, although Nobby and his deadbeat friends rather blow his cover by stringing a banner outside the pub, welcoming their very own spy.

From there the action (nicely handled by Letterier, who directed the first two Transporter films) moves to South Africa and then Chile, as Nobby and Sebastian (pictured) try to thwart the murderous plans of a dastardly organisation called Maelstrom.

‘Meet the head of the biggest crime syndicate in the world,’ Sebastian tells Nobby solemnly, when finally they come face to face with their deadly foe. ‘What, she runs FIFA?’ says Nobby.

That might well be the most sophisticated joke in a film that uses lavatorial comedy practically as a respite from the really tasteless stuff. There is a scene involving an elephant that cannot possibly be described in a family newspaper.

But the cast — which includes Penelope Cruz, somewhat improbably rubbing shoulders with Ricky Tomlinson and Johnny Vegas — have plenty of infectious, knockabout, semi-improvised fun. It’s not up to, or even down to, the same standards as Baron Cohen’s 2006 film Borat. But I can’t say it didn’t make me laugh.

A VERSION of this review appeared in previous editions.