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The law of diminishing returns catches up with Sacha Baron Cohen in "The Brothers Grimsby," a spy comedy in which Baron Cohen tries to outdo his past outrageousness but gets fewer laughs.

Super-suave secret agent Sebastian Graves (Mark Strong) is on a mission when he's unexpectedly reunited with his long-lost brother, Carl "Nobby" Butcher (played by Baron Cohen), a hard-drinking soccer hooligan from the detestable English town of Grimsby ("Twin City to Chernobyl," the sign at the city limits reads).

Nobby messes up Sebastian's mission, and now the two are fugitives accused of trying to assassinate do-gooder movie star Rhonda George (Penélope Cruz, in her second spy spoof in a month, after "Zoolander 2"). Nobby helps Sebastian undo the damage in a whirlwind story (written by Baron Cohen, Phil Johnston and Peter Baynham) that goes from England to South Africa to Chile, with a ridiculous climax at the world soccer championship.

Director Louis Leterrier ("Now You See Me," "The Incredible Hulk") is an apt fit for Strong's hyperviolent action sequences, but his comic timing is almost nonexistent as he sets up Baron Cohen's grotesque set pieces — the capper is when Nobby and Sebastian must hide inside an elephant's vagina.

Baron Cohen takes shots at everyone from Bill Cosby to Donald Trump (with a joke that reportedly gave Sony, the movie's distributor, flashbacks to Kim Jong-un's ire over "The Interview"), but the hits don't land with any impact. The one consistently funny thing in "The Brothers Grimsby" is watching Strong's poise slowly crumble as he tries to keep up with Baron Cohen's gross hijinks.

'The Brothers Grimsby'

Opens Friday, March 11, at area theaters; rated R for strong crude sexual content, graphic nudity, violence, language, and some drug use; 83 minutes.