Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2009 > July > 10
Friday, July 10, 2009
‘Bruno’ not as shocking as it thinks it is
By now, Sacha Baron Cohen has made it plain that he is a fearless provocateur who will do anything - and I mean anything - for a laugh.
And that’s exactly the problem with his new movie Bruno. Most of the sense of surprise and discovery Cohen had carried with him is gone now.
I wasn’t a great fan of Cohen’s breakthrough film, Borat, but I understood its appeal. It was subversive when the character made his subjects - and often his entire audience - into unwitting fools. I admired the boldness of the attempt, but thought the repetitive humor wore out its welcome.
Even though Bruno is not a sequel to Borat, it plays very much like a typical part two: It’s bolder, it’s brasher and it’s louder - but it’s not better.
Bruno is a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion commentator who gets fired, so he desperately seeks ways to make himself famous, with a camera always in tow. Along the way, he comes across several “real world” interview subjects, ranging from redneck hunters to presidential candidate Ron Paul, and watches them squirm at his outlandish antics.
When Cohen did this as Borat, the character seemed so guileless that it was easy to buy the idea that he could completely fool people. Not so much with Bruno. He’s so in-your-face, so ridiculously bizarre, that it’s hard to believe anyone fell for him. Instead of laughing at Bruno’s targets, I sat there incredulous at how gullible they were. Perhaps that’s part of Cohen’s point, but I didn’t usually find the endeavors funny.
On top of that, Cohen’s tendency to surprise has worn off. Because I knew going in that the movie was going to “shock” me, I ended up not being very shocked at all. No matter how deranged his tricks were, I watched most of them impassively. The genie was out of the bottle, and there was no putting him back in.
What little point Bruno has, Cohen takes too long to make it. He spends most of the early part of the movie staging “How sick is this?” sex gags, then engaging in stunts that have little or nothing to do with perceptions of homosexuality, such as Bruno’s attempt to broker peace between Jews and Arabs.
When Bruno finally does tackle gay-bashing, individual scenes stand out. Watching Bruno mingle with beer-chugging hunters is a hoot, and a scene in which Bruno tries to pass himself off as a straight man at a southern-fried Arkansas wrestling match is riotous when chaos ensues.
By that time, however, it’s too much, too late. What, I asked, was the point of all this? That many people are homophobic, whether it’s blatant or subtle? Sorry, but that’s not exactly front page news. In the end, I greeted Bruno with the reaction he probably fears the most: indifference. GRADE: C
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Reviews
