“Groß Bumsen.”
There’s a limit to how much people can take from Brüno, and Sacha Baron Cohen believes that finding that limit is the key to überjoy for you, the hapless sap sitting in a bacteria infested movie chair as popcorn kernels and God knows what else gets stuck to your shoes. This film barely made it past the NC17 mark, it was only a few cheeks away from out and out gay porn, so if that’s gonna leave a mark on you, avoid this one. If however you can endure all manner of foul humor, get in line and just freekin’ laugh already! (Remember the bad shit is happening to someone else, so it’s funny). With the state of the world right now, I applaud Cohen for reminding me, life may suck, but hell there is no reason it can’t be fun, and yes, sometimes sticky.
Brüno’s story starts out a a bit cliche, he wants to be a big superstar, live large, five cars, you get the idea. As the film starts he is the fashion guru of Austria, he alludes to other larger than life wannabes from Austria throughout. Because of his desire to be even more famous, he dons a self-made Velcro suit, and the retarded shockedy never stops until the abrupt end. My only real beef with this film was that it ended, I wanted to still be bombarded by, no doubt, countless hours of footage I hope he tosses onto the DVD/Bluray release.
For the record, if they come out with an Unrated DVD – it better be Unrated and Uncensored. I don’t want a repeat of Family Guy Presents the Stewie Griffin Story which didn’t even have the balls to say fuck. (All New Outrageous, Uncensored, My Ass).
Now that Cohen’s cat is out of the bag, he has to resort to some staged scenes, with the MTV awards show scandal proving that some of his work is not authentic. Regardless, the overall effect doesn’t suffer much. As with Borat, you won’t leave the theater a changed soul, or maybe you will, scenes of an inappropriate nature abound throughout – hell, he may end up converting some moderates to out and out zealots following this one.
Going too far is Brüno’s akt, and showing the world how desperate people are for fame is the message of this film – if it MUST have a message, let that be it. His assistant’s assistant, Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten) will stop at nothing to serve his master, falling in love with Brüno through all their misadventures. Brüno tries so hard to make it he even invades Hollywood’s bigger television studios with some smirk worthy scene wrecking on the NBC set only to be followed up by some anal bleaching following his hard day of extra work – but, his agent refuses to give up (not much of an agent if he can’t recognize Borat/Ali G/Brüno for who he is) but, I’ll let you be the judge if his agent was part of the staged performance or authentic publicity manipulating genius.
Every new scene will have you clenching your cheeks as you wait for the next victims to potentially snap his neck – will it be the Hollywood agent, the Drill Sergeants, the Rednecks, the Hasidic Jews, the Al Aqsa Brigade terrorists, the Swingers, or the Ultimate Fighter competition? You’ll have to see who gets closest to killing him – for my part, the scene that he gets his best comeuppance in may have been staged – but it was done so well and was so believable that he really committed so much that he deserves kudos for that piece of work.
Brüno is a definite must see for fans of Borat, and is a better not even crack open the theater door for uptight, stuffy types. Brüno was an experience best shared with a friend, the kinda person who you can be yourself with, the one person you can take that filter off that allows you to keep your job, your spouse, your sanity. And if you walk into this one thinking you are just going to see one long joke, think again, Cohen is a malevolent genius!
