Bruno

Review: Bruno

Dir. Larry Charles

81 Minutes

2009

Cert. 18

I knew Borat. Borat was a friend of mine. And you, Bruno, are no Borat.

All the time I was with Bruno, I was thinking of someone else; Borat, doing a better job. The shtick is closely related to that of Sacha Baron Cohen’s other, more famous alter-ego. Like Borat, Bruno exploits the vices and prejudices that simmer below the surface of modern America. Ironically, the corrosively sexual Bruno is no match for Borat when it comes to teasing out salacious foibles. The bumbling oaf from Khazakstan performed the sensual act of satire with far more delicacy than this shrieking pantomime of homosexuality. I never felt any sympathy for Borat’s victims - they were pretty much all asking for it. But it’s hard not to pity a lot of the people jumped by Bruno.

Borat may have been a homophobic anti-semite who screwed his sister. He may have crapped in a plastic grocery bag at a dinner party. But he never meant any harm. This was the beauty of Borat - it was almost impossible for his targets to question the unspeakable things he said and did, because Borat was innocent. He elicited more tolerance than his terrible views merited because he was a foreigner who ‘just didn’t know better’. The hideous blue suit and the manic, over-friendly smile - it all worked to inform people what a poor, ignorant soul this boob was, and made them let their guard down. How can we question the political views of a man with such an unfashionable moustache? Poor guy.

Nobody could feel sorry for Bruno. Firstly, he’s the host of an insipid Austrian fashion TV show called ‘Funkyzeit’, which informs us that this season ‘Autism is in’. It’s not even a pastiche of MTV. It is MTV. There’s really no parodying a channel that runs a reality TV show about Hulk Hogan’s daughter. Secondly, Bruno, a kind of gay bogeyman, is too vain and bombastic to accommodate the gems that some of his victims come out with. In an audition for babies to appear in a tasteless photoshoot with Bruno’s adopted son ‘OJ’, one eager dad declares that his young son ‘loves’ being around lit phosphorous. It’s unbearably funny, but there’s just not enough space for this stuff in the movie. How can such run-of the-mill atrocities compete with the sight of Bruno and his assistant shackled together in bondage gear, shuffling through a hate march organised by the delightful people who protest at the funerals of soldiers because ‘God hates fags’?

The gay angle doesn’t work perfectly either. Sure, it’s wrong for people to be intimidated purely by someone else’s sexual orientation, just as it was wrong for people to join in with the second verse of ‘throw the Jew down the well’. But is it as wrong to be intimidated by a man lunging at you with a dildo flopping around in each hand? The people that react badly to him aren’t really reacting badly to gays - just to Bruno.

This said, Bruno remains riotously funny. The film isn’t as acutely targeted as Borat, and makes a furtive stab at a whole kaleidoscope of modern nightmares, ranging from celebrity adoptions to ‘leaked’ sex tapes. Bruno’s attempt to seduce presidential candidate Ron Paul on film does not go well; ‘oops’, he coyly intones as his trousers slip down around his ankles. It’s also a little obvious that some scenes are staged. One standout moment that could not have been set up, however, sees Bruno inform the leader of the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (who is now hopping mad at being depicted as a terrorist) that Osama Bin Laden looks like ‘a homeless Santa Claus’ as he asks to be kidnapped for publicity purposes. Say what you will, Baron Cohen has balls. In fact, you get to see them in a pilot Bruno produces for US TV, swinging rhythmically to pounding techno music. The test screening returns the verdict ‘worse than cancer’.

Bruno is a strong contender for funniest movie of the year. It’s just a shame that Baron Cohen doesn’t allow the targets of his setups to provide more of the laughs, relying too heavily on Bruno’s shrillness and hyper-camp. Bruno is a vile, vile man and works better when provoking people into saying terrible things than as the star in his own right. His squealing Germanic twang, punctuated by an unsettling giggle, becomes pretty grating pretty fast and doesn’t measure up to Borat’s loopy lilt. The endless gay sex gags (as in jokes) also wear a little thin.

Bruno, it’s been fun. But I never want to see you again.

7/10

-James