While some may dislike Sacha Baron Cohen's latest work because it closely follows the same format as its predecessor "Borat"; the true problem with "Bruno" is that the film is just not as funny as the one starring everyone's favorite Kazakhstan reporter.
Sure, the films both have their fair share of outrageous and obscene humor, but "Borat" struck a nice balance, and had some form of a storyline.
Cohen takes another character from his television series "Da Ali G Show" and once again applies the big screen treatment. This time he plays "Bruno", a very flamboyant Austrian fashion reporter who gets fired from his entertainment show, and decides he needs to be an American celebrity.
That's pretty much the whole story. Even a simple narrative structure is lacking from "Bruno", and while that's not a huge deal with a film of this nature, it makes the bad jokes even more painful to sit through.
Of the 88-minute runtime, "Bruno" does contain a solid half hour of pure hilarity and comedic gold. The rest of the film is pure trash, and I wish I had that hour back of my life.
I "get" what Cohen is trying to do with these films. I understand that he's a genius at inciting the worst emotions in people, pushing forth the rampant racism/sexism and hatred that is seemingly starting to fill the world's population.
I know that he's trying to make a point while at the same time providing entertainment. The problem is the film doesn't provide many truly funny moments, and instead tries to see how many people it can insult.
Even for me, a huge fan of Cohen and "Borat", this was just a little too much.
I wouldn't pay money to go see this film as there are 2 minute YouTube videos out there that are far funnier than anything in this film.
1 and a half buckets.
