'Bruno' Review

Posted on July 12, 2009 - 6:04pm by michael My long term criticism instincts are insisting to me that in decades to come people will point to movies like Bruno as signposts of a major shift in the comedy genre, possibly even an advancement of it, but my short-term instincts are bitterly offended about the horrific experience of sitting through the damned thing. The movie ultimately redeems itself and actually has some good moments in the second half, but make no mistake, the first 30 minutes of this movie are among the most unpleasant and endurance-testing that I have ever spent in a movie theater in my entire life. All joking aside, literally the only reason I didn’t walk out and demand a refund was because I was so embarrassed for Sasha Baron Cohen that I didn’t want to stand up and call attention to myself.

One other couple in the theater, however, didn’t make it very far. A mere 10 or 15 minutes into the movie (about the time Bruno was pouring champagne out of a bottle shoved up his pygmy boyfriend’s ass), a girl stormed out of the theater, followed a few seconds behind by her boyfriend, who sheepishly tried to stroll on out like nothing was wrong. This to me was funnier than anything in the rest of the movie.

Now, if you feel confident that you possess the unique ability to be entertained by a flaccid dick being waved in your face on a 40-foot screen, and then talking to you, then I encourage you to go see Bruno with all possible speed. The rest of you may want to exercise a little more caution, unless you are pretty sure you wouldn’t feel cheated to discover that you just spent your time and money going to the movies to see an 80-minute dildo joke. Either way, be thankful that this is just a movie, because if it were a live production, Cohen would squirt something warm at the audience during that scene.

[caption id="attachment_44344" align="alignleft" width="329" caption="If you can tell that this is a penis joke, you're well on your way to understanding Bruno."][/caption]

Bruno is the host of an Austrian fashion show called Funkyzeit who crashes a fashion show and falls from grace in his own country. Much of the comedy comes from Cohen butchering a German accent and going around the world being preposterously gay and searching for the fame and fortune that he is sure he richly deserves. Most of the movie, like Borat, is a series of sophomoric skits where Bruno gets all outrageously flaming in front of a series of supposedly unsuspecting victims, including Paula Abdul, Ron Paul (yes, that one), and a variety of homophobes - a Midwestern “gay converter,” a second level gay converter, and an angry mob of rednecks who think they’re watching a straight-pride wrestling show. Celebrities who dodged the Bruno bullet include Vilhem Schmidt (Will Smith), Bradolph Pittler (!!), and the “Fuehrer” (Mel Gibson, of course).

While I personally found the movie almost completely intolerable from beginning to end, it certainly is not without laughs. Unfortunately, most of the laughs I heard in the theater were the kind of embarrassed chuckles that you’ll hear from people who just spent $20 to see Bruno go “I traded this little black baby for an iPod” only to discover that the only other laughs you’re going to get involve things like Bruno acting out his memories of blowing Milli Vanilli. This scene in particular, or anything like it, I am hoping to pass through the rest of my life without ever seeing again, and it is for this among several other reasons that I’ll probably never watch another Sasha Baron Cohen movie as long as I live. In fact, I’m considering watching Sweeney Todd again just so I can see Johny Depp slit his throat.

Maybe that’s a little harsh, but not really. The movie does make an honest attempt in its closing scene to make up for the 78-minute crapfest that preceded it, but even though Bruno is successful in lampooning various types of ridiculous homophobia, it does it by resorting to the long dead tactic of tossing together outrageous homosexuality with outrageous gay haters. Most homosexuals are normal people who are attracted to people of the same sex, while most people who oppose homosexuality are just normal people who don’t really feel comfortable with people of the opposite sex being together in a romantic relationship. Of course the thinking public realizes this, but if they made a movie about those people, how could they possibly fit in enough blowjob jokes?

The Bean Meter



[caption id="attachment_44346" align="aligncenter" width="151" caption="2 Beans out of 5."][/caption]