Bruno: Review

Sacha Baron Cohen is back, and be prepared to be shocked, offended, surprised and to cry with laughter, but maybe not as much as Borat.

Borat was a huge hit a few years ago and what made that film work, was that Cohen's creation was an innocent. A man who didn't understand the cultures or values of a country so far removed from his own. Bruno, however, is very knowing, and this is where the film slightly falls down.

Borat could get away with some of the comments by his look, the crumpled suit made him look fairly normal. Bruno comes on as a flamboyant, over-the-top lover of latex and you wonder if the people he meets and talks to really can't see that it's a joke.

Don't let that get in the way of the joke. Bruno is very, very funny, to the point of painful. There are moments when you will be fighting for breath, and these moments come at the expense of others. At its best, the scenes where Bruno is interviewing parents to use their children for a photo shoot, for example, will leave you shocked at the levels in which some people will push their children for fame; at its worse, like the scene in which Bruno tries to seduce an elderly senator, will leave you tutting at the screen, as the joke maybe went too far.

This is the difference between Borat and Bruno. Borat knew when to stop. Bruno doesn't, and works in fits and starts. The level of vulgarity is pushed through the roof, and sometimes this just disgusts, where the best parts come later in the film, when Bruno decides the only way to become famous is to be straight. The scenes with the hunters are hilarious, as the breakdown in communications under the stars speaks volumes more about the machoness of men.

The film is definitely more adult than Borat, and doesn't leave much to the imagination. The scene where Bruno imagines a graphic sexual act with a dead friend in front of a spiritualist is uncomfortable to the max, and where the relationship between Borat and his manager worked to move the film along, the relationship between Bruno and his assistant's assistant slows it down.

Cohen has managed to do it again, but it's not a consistent as Borat, and you do begin to wonder if Cohen should now stop and let this style of mockumentary alone.