Bruno: Review By MovieBuff

Three years ago, I walked out of the theater in tears after watching Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Tears of laughter. The realistic skits posed on unwitting victims was just simply hilarious and shocking. It pretty much showed what the whole world pretty much already knew but had never actually seen… on screen. That many Americans are bigots and racists… not all, mind you, but many. This year, however, Cohen brings us another character in his arsenal and I was waiting with great anticipation. I couldn‘t help but wonder if lightning could strike twice. With his new found fame, could Cohen pull off more skits on unwitting people with his character, Bruno? The answer is… not really.

Sasha Baron Cohen plays Bruno, a “gay Austrian fashionista” who gets blacklisted from the fashion industry due to an outfit gone terribly wrong. He moves with his devoted and love-struck assistant, Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten), to Los Angeles to become famous. And so, like Borat, Brüno goes on a journey, during which he remains largely oblivious to his effects on a series of easy targets ranging from Hollywood celebrities and Southerners to politicians and Christian ministers.

Part of the problem with the film is that many of the scenes (or skits) looked staged. Very few of the “real life” people seem fooled by Brüno’s shtick. While Borat produced multiple lawsuits by those who felt tricked into participating, most of Brüno’s victims appear ready and willing to play along. One example was when Paula Abdul looked like the most refined person on the set. Barely ruffled as she talked about her desire to “help people” while sitting on a Mexican gardener’s back (one of Brüno’s unconventional chairs). The setting looked so obviously staged that I was waiting for Paula to yell out “Am I being punked? Where’s Ashton?”. She absolutely exemplifies the movie’s credibility gap. As she speeds away after being offered sushi served on a naked body, you can’t help but suspect that behind the tinted windows of her car, she’s high-fiving her assistant for a job well done.

A few of the other skits seem more “real,” and are as awkward as we’ve come to expect from Baron Cohen. Politician Ron Paul seems genuinely pissed off when Brüno tries to seduce him in hopes of getting famous through a sex-tape scandal (later he complains that he’s such a loser, he can’t even seduce “Rue Paul"). Trying to get kidnapped by a terrorist, he’s thrown out of the village when he offers grooming advice for Bin Laden, saying he should “lose the beard” because it makes him look like “a dirty wizard or a homeless Santa.” But even the so-called genuineness of this encounter was totally discredited when Baron Cohen appeared on David Letterman on July 7th and talked about how he set up his interview with the terrorist. When he asked a local contact about safety concerns, he was told, “Don’t worry. Everybody loves you. We all love Da Ali G Show!” There went the credibility of that scene.

In truth, Brüno is nothing but 82 minutes of genitals. Cohen obviously believes that the sight of a male penis bopping around in extreme close-up will have you rolling in the aisles. If you’re 14 and inexperienced in the ways of reproduction, it just might. This is a movie that needs you to be unsophisticated and clueless. As the line between what has been staged and what is “true” gets blurred and then completely forgotten, one can’t help but feel sorry for the audience members who actually think this is great cinema. It’s one thing to uncover America’s biases and bigotry as Cohen did in Borat, but with Bruno he simply wants to go with penis gags and gay jokes.

I’m making this review short because I was simply disgusted with Cohen’s attempt on humor. The film is surely funny for the easily distracted and the immature, but not for the audience member who is actually looking for a good laugh without resorting to penis and gay sexual jokes. Seeing a man with a champagne bottle up his ass is simply not funny to me… just disgusting.

It’s one thing to make us laugh at the responses of unwitting participants, but to insult us by thinking we would believe all these skits were not staged is… well, insulting. You know the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me? That saying fits this movie like a glove. No, lightning doesn’t strike twice for Cohen. Borat was inventive and innovative, while Bruno is just a cheap laugh (which there are some, but not worth the price). In my opinion, this film will be much less successful (and is less funny) than its predecessor, Borat. Save your money and wait for the DVD.

MOVIE RATING SCALE:

5.0 stars = A MUST SEE

4.5 stars = Excellent

4.0 stars = Outstanding

3.5 stars = Good

3.0 stars = Above Average

2.5 stars = Average

*** 2.0 stars = Disappointing ***

1.5 stars = Bad

1.0 stars = Terrible

0.5 stars = Horrible

0.0 stars = UNWATCHABLE