Rating: MMM

Review of Brüno, the latest character-driven film from Sacha Baron Cohen.

Director: Larry Charles
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen
Running time: 83 mins

Brüno is the silver-screen spin-off of Sacha Baron Cohen’s television character of the same name. And as with the 2006 film devoted to his other creation Borat, Baron Cohen’s Brüno suffers from its eponymous star being an essentially unlikeable character.  The Austrian fashion expert has very few redeeming and endearing qualities – even less than Baron Cohen’s Kazakh ‘hero’. Where Borat could be loveable and sweetly naïve, Brüno manages to maintain a level of near-constant irritation throughout. The only way the character manages to engage with the audience is by the broad comedy (and more often stupidity) and ridiculous scrapes he gets himself (and others) into.

Having said this, the bellylaughs generated by Brüno’s antics only just outnumber the head-in-hands moments where one wonders if the tone can really be lowered any more. Though Baron Cohen’s film and television work is arguably not for the easily offended or those of a nervous disposition, it does at times seem that Brüno aims to shock and appal somewhat arbitrarily – superfluous crassness exemplified in numerous sequences where our protagonist and his partner engage in various sexual acts, Brüno’s television pitch and his visit to a fortune-teller. These moments of sheer crudity detract from an otherwise very entertaining and without a doubt hilarious film.

Again (as seen in Borat) it must be said that the American people do make for excellent comic fodder, demonstrating various levels of socio-political ignorance and stupidity that never cease to amaze (although this may be down to slick editing), with Brüno talking to a pair of bimbo PR agents in Hollywood who seem to believe that Darfur is in the Middle-east. Other foreign policy issues are similarly gaffed and played with to great aplomb, pinpointing with worrying accuracy the areas of social cluelessness apparently prevalent in the US. Other winning sequences see Brüno in conversation with the parents of child models, pointing to celebrities and referring to them in Germanic names – Wilhelm Schmidt (Will Smith), Bradolf Pittler (Brad Pitt) and der Fuhrer (Mel Gibson) -and an ill-advised interview with a real terrorist. These triumphant scenes are welcome relief from a film comprised almost entirely from thoroughly hit-and-miss sequences, with the funniest moments due to Baron Cohen’s comic timing and not from forced cringe-worthy vulgarity.

Brüno is an enjoyable and entertaining comedy that is likely to polarise audiences, stuck between shocked offense and peals of laughter.

Rating: MMM