Bruno, 2009

I remember watching Borat a few years ago and utterly disdaining it. I had been at a disadvantage, to be fair; it was quite a few months after it had been popular, so there wasn’t a line in the movie that I had not heard a thousand times before. But then again, I believe Sacha Baron Cohen begins both Borat and this follow-up at a personal disadvantage with me: I don’t find people being purposefully rude or irritating funny at all, I find it obnoxious. I still wanted to give Bruno a chance. Here, Cohen’s character is a flamboyantly gay Austrian who comes to America looking to get famous. It’s no secret that parts of America are rife with homophobia, so I was hoping for Cohen to help expose and mock a lot of that, perhaps even making some social statements along the way. Unfortunately, Cohen lends no help to the gay community with this film. When people get mad at Cohen in this movie, half of the time I don’t think it’s because he’s gay at all - I think it’s because he’s wasting their time and being annoying in the process. I did say half the time. Bruno ended up being about half enjoyable and half obnoxious. There are some instances where Bruno captures people at their most delightfully embarrassing. Paula Abdul claims that her experience filmed here was “scarring”, and I’ll at least grant her that it scarred her reputation. Only a fool would agree to discuss human rights while sitting on a man acting as furniture. One of the most enlightening sequences is also one where Cohen thankfully doesn’t have to make an ass for himself - the people he’s playing off of take over that role. Cohen holds a casting session for a photo shoot for babies, and the parents of the auditioning children are horrendously exploitative. In a culture where beauty pageant contestants are still in diapers and featured in reality TV shows instead of being taken away from their parents, Cohen’s interviews only shows the absurd extremes to which parents will agree to go. It’s horrifying to watch parents agree to their children being strung up on baby crucifixes, and Cohen makes sure to record them agreeing to every last outlandish request. I was actually pretty impressed by the way some of Cohen’s victims reacted to him. I was horrified when the Ron Paul sequence began, fearing that this old politician would say career-shattering homophobic remarks. While Paul did end up calling Cohen “queer”, his reaction was much more tempered then I had expected, especially in light of the uncomfortable position Cohen puts him in. In another instance, a “spiritualist” sits patiently if disapprovingly by as Cohen entertains himself with a length and unfunny blowjob charade bit. Some parts of the movie are unbelievable. Cohen goes to the Middle East, which I personally find to be one of the ballsiest moves he’s done yet. Another bit that starts off pretty funny, wherein Cohen fools a focus group, ends up going over-the-top in a shameless assault of male genitalia on screen. All of the parts with Cohen playing off of people’s reactions are framed by the fictional narrative featuring Bruno and his assistant’s assistant falling in and out of love. Many of these scenes are childish and poorly written, and bring down the film and its already questionable candid footage. One early scene with cartoonish sex acts stands out as exceptionally awful. I definitely would have appreciated the film finding a better framing device for Cohen’s antics. I reiterate that the film was a 50/50 affair for me. The fake narrative scenes were almost all bad, and out of the leftover candid bits, I found only half of them to be comical, with the other half either offensive or just plain stupid. I had problems before seeing the movie with Cohen running around reinforcing stereotypes about homosexuals, but after watching it I may have a bigger problem with the resulting unfunny footage. There are plenty of moments where you will gasp or be in shock, but audacity alone does not make a movie good by any means. Cohen had an opportunity to make an interesting mockumentary that explored social currents in America and around the world. Instead, he opted for some fart jokes and being a jackass in public. Final rating: 5/10 —James A. Janisse http://twitter.com/JamesAJanisse

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