Bruno
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen
Dir: Larry Charles
Rating: 3/5
Borat is so 2006 darling it's now time for Bruno to have his time on the big screen in another outrageous comedy.
Austrian fashionista runs amok in America in his never-ending quest for "celebrity". In a bid to make it to the big time Bruno attempts to seduce a onetime presidential hopeful, adopts a black African baby and provokes a near riot at a caged boxing bout in Texas.
In it's short running time, only eighty three minutes, Bruno manages to offend just about everyone as Sacha Baron Cohen proves that he is the comedian that is willing to go just that one step further than everyone else.
It is one of the funniest movies that we have seen so far this year and you can't help but admire the guts this performer has to undertake the tricks and stunts that he does.
And while the movie is very funny at the time it's not very memorable and at less that an hour and a half you do feel slightly cheated.
The problem with Bruno is Cohen's ability to keep the big laughs coming as the movie had a very definite ebb and flow. Strapped in bondage, at a swingers party and trying to turn straight with the gay converters of America is all very funny but this couldn't be sustained throughout all of the movie.
And the shooting and screening of his television show, along with the shooting weekend were real low points for the movie.
But the tricks are humiliating, and often cruel, that it's easy to see why so many people do find Bruno, and other creations in the past, offensive.
But it's the creating of characters that you have to praise Cohen for as there has been no comic creation like Bruno since Borat back in 2006.
On a first watch the film, on the whole, is very funny, the prejudices in America are just ridiculous, but the jokes become tired after a while and it's not something that you could watch on a regular basis and still find yourself laughing.
Bruno is out now.
Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Sacha Baron Cohen