David Edelstein
Press clippings
Do you laugh at Grimsby, or does it laugh at you?
I wish I could believe more avidly in Baron Cohen's brand of guerrilla comedy, in what he views as his moral imperative to entrap and then push the buttons of bigots, anti-Semites, and members of the wealthy ruling class. In the course of planning the above prank, he tells his crew that you "don't have to be funny to be satirical." But what in the end was he satirizing? All I can see is a peculiar -- and unexamined -- sadism.
David Edelstein, Vulture, 12th March 2016