Outrageous, unnerving, brave, topical, revealing, appalling and consistently hilarious, Brüno manages to be both cutting-edge cultural commentary and post-modern comic genius.
Bruno (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:208
Fresh:140
Rotten:68
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: Crude and offensive, but with ample cultural insights and gut-busting laughs, Bruno is another outlandish and entertaining mockumentary from Sacha Baron Cohen.
Theatrical Release:10-07-2009
Synopsis: After BORAT took over America in 2006, another Sacha Baron Cohen creation arrives on the big screen. In BRUNO, the gay Austrian model of the title brings his antics to the States.
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen
Director: Larry Charles
Director: Larry Charles
Screenwriter: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer, Jeff Schaffer
Story: Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer
Producer: Sacha Baron Cohen, Jay Roach, Dan Mazer, Monica Levinson
Composer: Erran Baron Cohen
Studio: Universal Pictures
Reviews for Bruno
All the cautions and qualifications in the world are blasted out of your head by some of the film's astoundingly hilarious ideas and sequences.
A crude, cringe-worthy, and intermittently funny affair that triggers the gag reflex.
Not all of the jokes are complex, or smug. Some follow the pure, simple slapstick route to the belly laugh, and there are enough of those to please many Cohen fans.
For all his idiocy, Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev was a more likable jester than Brüno, who is the sum of his nether parts. One is a naif in a strange land. One is a jerk no matter where he travels.
Cohen has come up with some marvelous satirical motifs; elsewhere, he's just showing how far he'll go to get a laugh.
It's an odd cop-out for so fiercely gifted a comedian.... This is not a man who is doomed to be Allen Funt, or for that matter, Ashton Kutcher. He doesn't need to rely on the easy titillations and voyeuristic pull of reality TV.
An enormous schwanstucker of a comedy - hilarious, raw, shocking. Sign me up girlfriend. Two snaps up. Way up!
The bad outweighs the good and the cringes outnumber the laughs in Brüno, a disappointment from Sacha Baron Cohen, whose Borat was one of the funniest movies of the decade.
There's not much to Brüno beyond some very old limp-wristed clichés that are as hostile to gays as the people Baron Cohen mocks.
If you liked Borat, I'd recommend it. And I'd recommend you expect it to be only 2/3 as good.
When moments seem like setups with actors, they turn tame. But when things feel real -- as when Bruno conronts an Arkansas wrestling-match crowd -- they can get scary-real.
I don't know how many more times Baron Cohen can go undercover, but it looks as if he'll never run out of bigotry, idiocy and hypocrisy to spoof.
Even at 82 minutes, Brüno feels stretched-out with stitched-together filler.
Inevitably, this follow-up to Cohen's guerrilla mockumentary hit is a substantial letdown, lacking the novelty of its predecessor.
Skeptics might not swallow it all, and thinner-skinned folks will surely be offended. But no one will deny that Baron Cohen is fearless in his pursuit of rowdy laughs.
In Brüno, most of the stunts feel staged, more like The Hills than Cultural Learnings.
Ribbing for your pleasure, Brüno is crafted to cause a flurry of varied reactions, even within a single viewer.
Brüno never comes close to the inspired comic/cultural lunacy of Borat, or even the dunderhead fearlessness of Ali G.
Latest News for Bruno
November 12, 2009:
RT on DVD: Wassup, Bruno
More...
July 13, 2009:
Bruno 'terrorist' threatens to sue Sacha Baron Cohen ![]()
Ayman Abu Aita, the so-called 'terroist leader' interviewed by Sacha Baron Cohen in Bruno, claims he was duped by the star -- and is now threatening to sue the filmmakers. More...
July 12, 2009:
Box Office Guru Wrapup: Brüno Struts To The Top Spot
Sacha Baron Cohen scored another number one hit with his latest shockfest comedy Brüno which opened atop the North American box office bumping two-time champ Transformers:... More...
July 09, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Bruno is Certified Fresh
This week at the movies, we've got Austrian audacity (Bruno, starring Sacha Baron Cohen) and graduation gratification (I Love You, Beth Cooper, starring Hayden Panettiere and... More...
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