In a nation of Bruno's, surely the reaction must be universally positive!

BRUNO.

3.5/5.

Really hit and miss at parts. Didn't seem as real as Borat. I think most of it was set up.

But the soldier scene, tv chat show, wrestling, hotel with the chains, the parents signing their kids up for lipo and dressing as nazi's, the swingers scene etc were laugh out loud hilarious. I loved it when he called the black soldier "she" haha. What homophobic bastards at the end though! Glad Bruno showed them, idiots.

Way better than Borat.

Brüno is a terrible follow up for Sacha Baron Cohen when compared to Borat. While there were a couple of laughs here and there, the film is just a terrible poke at many different controversial issues. I'm sorry but when you rely on a joke to be whether you keep or abort a baby, that is just sad. Please switch back to Borat and give us Borat 2. *

B/B+


Brüno is a much bigger case of a love/hate film than Borat ever was. Borat actually seems quite tame and reasonable compared to Brüno which really pushes the envelope as far as possible (while still getting an R-rating). That might be an admirable ambition, but it does not mean that it is a better film - it's not.

There are moments in Brüno that are just as hilarious as some of Borat's best scenes. My favorite parts include the beginning of the film with Brüno and his pigmy boyfriend, the presentation of Brüno's show pilot (talking penis alert!!) and the film's final cage fighting scene (the idea of playing it to My Heart Will Go On was brilliant). However, Brüno is not nearly as consistent. Whereas Borat played more like a "real" movie with some sort of a plot, this really just felt like a series of sketches. There were also several that just didn't work well like Brüno crashing the fashion show in Milan or appearing on "Medium". One needs to be said, though...Sacha Baron Cohen definitely has some balls. Going to Middle East like this seems like a really crazy idea if you value your own life. So kudos to that.

However ballsy does not always mean funny and in that aspect the film is really hit and miss. As I said, some parts are hilarious, but others, while sometimes clever, are just not very funny. Cohen was definitely just going for more controversy here. The comedy also does not hold up very well on repeat viewings once the shock factor is gone. Casn't say the same of Borat which was sitll hilarious in my second viewing.

What also hurts the film is that Brüno is simply not a very likable character. Borat, for all his idiocy, antisemitism and sexism was still kind of a lovable idiot, whereas Brüno just always comes across as an obnoxious, arrogant asshole. It was a nice trick that Cohen pulled off with Borat in that despite all that the character has done you still kinda felt for him when he was abandoned by Azamat. I never sympathized with Brüno, though. Also, Lutz was not nearly as good of a sidekick as Azamat was to Borat.

It's a nice outrageous comedy, but those expecting to to match Borat will be sorely disappointed. It's also a textbook example of why "more" is not necessarily "better".

This may be the finest comedy of, at least, the last five years.

Sorry, wrong guess, yoshue.

I don't know, Argos, it's pretty good.

That is why I told you.