Brüno
The last of the three Sacha Baron Cohen characters from Da Ali G Show to get it's own feature film. Comparisons to the previous film Borat are unavoidable as the filmmakers practically encouraged it.
With pretty much the same filmmaking team, Brüno is clearly an attempt to recreate the success fo Borat by sticking to the same structure. Both films are a documentary style with a mix of staged and improvised scenes about a foreigner coming to America with a quest. He travels around the country to different venues with his comrade who he gets angry at and abandons before being reunited at the end. So there are no chances taken on the structure. If it worked for you last time, hopefully it will work for you again. Just don't expect any surprises there.
Now about the actual character and the meat of the scenes. Here is where Brüno in the movie is different from the movie Borat, and most of the time it doesn't work as well. If you could describe Borat with one word, one thing he is about and that Cohen is trying to convey to the people he meets, it is "foreign". To many Americans "foreign" means strange. And people seem to be delusional about how "strange" a foreign person could or should be.
For people who are extremely concerned about being polite and PC, Borat gets away with taking a shit at a table and not getting as harsh of a reaction as fellow America. He plays catch with a football and can't seem to figure out how to catch it from two feet away, or throw it more than a foot. He can't even figure out how to hold it. But people aren't as bemused as they should be. Can being foreign sometimes mean that you don't even know how to hold a ball (when there is apparently nothing physically wrong with you)? No, it basically means you are retarded.
For people who are themselves a bit immoral in their racism or sexism, they have found a friend in Borat who provides many of the same predilections. Of course sometimes Borat finds himself on the harsh end of the racism himself.
Now Brüno is also foreign, but if there was one word to describe him, this would not be it. His word is clearly "gay". And while Cohen can make up whatever kind of strange behavior he would like to come off as "foreign", being "gay" already has all of it's own established stereotypes. And in this movie Brüno pushes them so hard that I think even most gay people and gay rights activists would be antagonized. I never thought I'd say this until I saw the movie, but the Brüno in the Da Ali G Show TV show actually now seems like it had some subtlety and restraint. Thus in the movie we don't get that portion of reactions like in Borat where people seem to be sympathetic to him despite crossing lines. Most people who go along with him are people who are almost more depraved then him. The most memorable of these is probably also the most memorable scene in the movie for me: the interview with the parents of toddlers auditioning to be in a music video who will subject their children to no limits of unspeakable danger and humiliation just to get them work in show business. I'm not kidding. There are no limits. It is shocking and disgusting, but unlike some other portions of this movie, in an important way that needs to be exposed.
I might sound like I didn't like the movie more than I did though. I did enjoy it, I just think there was potential for it to have been better. Or maybe I'm just getting a little worn out of a good thing.
Bradolf Pittler
Rating: 8/10