8 Recent Movies Most Obviously Ruined By Bad Editing
5. Grimsby Seems To Know Its Main Character Is Horrible
While there's nothing intrinsically wrong with a film coming in under 90 minutes - I'd much rather have something slightly too short that leave me wanting more over someth slightly too long that leave me bludgeoned into submission - Grimsby's 83 minutes runtime is 100% rooted in trying to get it as unobjectionably brief as possible. There's the landmark gags - the gun fight, that godforsaken elephant jizz - none of which really land, then between them it's all incredibly flat character beats trimmed to nothing.
Sony's release pattern for the film really reflected this uncertainty; they struggled with promotion and almost seemed ashamed of putting audiences through Sacha Baron Cohen's latest (and based on box office, possibly last) "character" outing.
Worst Moment: The opening.
The ending of Grimsby is so rushed you wonder why they even bothered introducing an action finale element, but at least everything in it ties into earlier setup moments. The opening, on the other hand, has no such narrative grace. It carlessly establishes Grimsby as a scummy hellhole and before rushing into the start-of-second-act turn before the latecomers have even settled down. Although at least it wasn't any longer.