movie review by brandon, the movie nerd: brüno

Bruno- **** out of five

This is very important: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT eat popcorn during the focus group scene in Bruno. You WILL laugh-spray it all over the head of the person in front of you. This warning also goes for Coke, the 40 you snuck in, and various candies like the Sno-Caps that have been sitting under the glass countertop since 1983.

I have not laughed harder at a movie this year, and I saw The Hangover. There were points in this movie that I was doubled over, choking, sucking in air while trying not to make wet, snorty noises. What Sacha Baron Cohen has done defies all laws of good taste. Did you think Borat was bad? Well this movie's going to buttf**k your mind while wearing bright yellow daisy dukes and a strap-on the size of Quebec. There were things in this movie I NEVER thought I would see in a theater under an R rating. The original cut was apparently NC-17, and it terrifies me to think what was cut out because I spent most of the movie wondering how it wasn't rated X.

Bruno is a gay Austrian fashion show host who's just as air-headed and shallow as the people he interviews. Cohen created him (along with Borat) for Da Ali G Show, which had Cohen playing complete morons in order to poke fun at people's own prejudices. After destroying a fashion show by wearing an all-Velcro suit, Bruno follows the Borat formula of coming to America and basically wreaking havoc on everyone and everything. Bruno is determined to do what ever it takes to become a "celebrity." He's the biggest, gayest, most Austrian thing to hit America since Hitler, and America is NOT READY IN ANY WAY.

What stands out, at least upon a first viewing, are the major scenes. Like Borat's naked fight through the hotel, there are some Bruno set pieces that start hilarious and just will NOT let up. But there's great little one-liners too...talking about people putting things in his "Auschwitz" and screwing around with celebrity names like Bradof Pittler. Most of these are simply done to make people uncomfortable, to see if they call him out or they just accept it. Like when he wants to make out with the dead lover a Hollywood psychic is channeling, or when he takes his new African baby on the Richard Bey Show and tries to tell the all-black audience the proper use of the term "African-American." Sometimes he's just pushing buttons, and it does go too far…the scene with the hunter at night borders on harassment.

But Cohen is also never afraid to make himself look bad, or put himself in harm's way. Seriously, you want to talk balls? Bruno scores an interview with the head of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a terrorist organization (although the guy now says he's NOT part of it…as if he WANTS to go to Guantanamo?), and tells him Osama bin Laden looks like a dirty wizard or a homeless Santa Claus. And the climax at the UFC Fighting Championship is so funny/terrifying that I was covering my eyes and fearing for the future of America.

Like Borat, I'm not sure this is a "good" movie. It's basically a collection of utterly ridiculous crap connected by the tiniest of threads. And it's not always consistently funny, but the focus group was worth the admission price alone. While Borat, hilarious as it was, wore me down by the end, this one keeps the energy high and doesn’t wear out its welcome.

This is not for the squeamish, or anyone who can't take copious naked man parts (or talking penises). But the rest of you WILL shit your pants with laughter, and I guarantee it won't be the grossest thing in the theater.