As Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen made cultural learning of America a bloodsport, but it was only when the film came out that the penny dropped and victims realised they were the game. This time around, the targets remain the same but the playing field has changed considerably: the candid insights are few and far between.
Borat’s ignorance and anonymity was the perfect bait for his unsuspecting targets – he created a conspiratorial cosiness that gave like-minded Yankees enough rope to hang themselves with, hilariously. In his leathers and lederhosen hotpants, Brüno takes a more provocative approach. To his targets, Brüno’s in-your-face antics only confirm their worst stereotypes about gay people but that’s no big surprise: as much as our hero might fantasise about converting homophobes (and believe me, he gives it a red-hot go), the point of Brüno is hardly to document the personal epiphanies of bigots.
The conceit is pretty slim: Brüno is perched at the top of the fashion apex, living a champagne lifestyle in Vienna as a celebrity and social arbiter with his hit show, Funkyzeit mit Brüno. Things go pear-shaped when a Velcro jumpsuit gets him 'schwarzlisted’ at Milan Fashion Week, and he finds himself on his own Out list. Dropped from Funkyzeit, dumped by his boy toy, scorned by the Eurofashion elite, Bruno quits Vienna to make it big in the U.S. of A. Once there, he tries unsuccessfully to find fame as a multihyphenate actor, sex-tape star, humanitarian and Brangelina-like breeder. When he’s at his lowest ebb, the thought occurs that Tinseltown’s heroes are all hetero (wink, wink) so he vows to straighten up more than just his facial expression.
A slimmed, toned, bleached and Brazilian-ed Baron Cohen inhabits the role of the eternally optimistic self-promoter of the title, having shed all remnants of his earlier Kazakhstani creation (and apparently developed a ventriloquist-like command of his nether regions in the process).
Brüno boasts far superior production values than its predecessor, though this does nothing to dispel the general whiff of organised chaos that surrounds the film. Many sequences feel staged: victims are clearly sourced straight from the Central Casting look book; and the film’s flimsy premise doesn’t hold much water when you start to question the presence of the film crew. Similarly, Brüno’s stint as a scenery-chewing extra on Medium smacks more of cross-promotion for Universal stable mate NBC than of any genuine 'gotcha' moment...
It may be largely a con but at least it’s a genuinely funny one, with candid moments interspersed throughout the film’s scripted confines that have to be seen to be believed: the seduction-by-stealth of a Republican presidential wannabe; the mimed fellating of a grammy-winner’s ghost; and the closeted Brüno’s very public outing in an Arkansas cage fighting octagon.
Along the way, director Larry Charles covers some of the same terrain he travelled with Bill Maher in Religulous – Brüno’s attempts to heal rifts between Israelis and Palestinians (through a so-so gag about chick pea derivatives), and a consultation with a big-lipped 'gay-fixing’ preacher will seem familiar to fans of the earlier film – although the raucous innuendo does give it a saucy twist. Nonetheless, highlights of Brüno’s Middle East sojourn include some very unorthodox Orthodox daywear, and a brief flirtation with martyrdom.
Brüno has copped inevitable flak for perpetuating the usual stereotypes of male homosexuality, and to be sure, there’s enough of them in there (and a few new ones, to boot) to keep the wowsers of the world sufficiently outraged. But it’s plainly obvious that Brüno is not the butt of the overall joke. It’s also worth noting that such an out-and-proud character (albeit played by a straight comedian) is taking the lead in a broad studio comedy, where being gay is usually the punch line and not the premise.
Share
