Who is the Audience for This Movie?

People who like shock comedy.

What I Liked About This Movie

The character Bruno is based off one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters from The Ali G Show. I always found Bruno’s skits the funniest. I was really pumped to go see this movie because I knew it would at worst would provide a solid amount of laughs. The comedy at first glance may seem overly offensive but if you were to analyze it you would realize that it works on multiple levels.

For the movie Cohen really “amped up the gay” and the sheer variety of situations that occur are impressive. You can tell in every frame of the movie that everyone is incredibly uncomfortable being around him. For me though the greatest asset this movie has is that Cohen only gets one shot at making the scene funny and since he is in essence playing a prank on everyone it could go wrong at any moment. It’s impressive how well a lot of the interviews and situations pan out even though a few of them felt like elements were staged. In Borat, which was starred another character from the Ali G show people assumed that the person talking to them was generally clueless because America was foreign to him. In Bruno, Cohen did not have that luxury.

I did not want to mention anything that happens to ensure I don’t ruin it for you but I have to say my favorite setup is his interview with a pastor who converts homosexuals to heterosexuals.

What Didn’t Work For Me

In its effort to push the boundaries of comedy Bruno ends up having a few off putting moments. When they occur you will most likely not really know what to think or not want to think about them in any detail. In order to keep Bruno structured like a conventional movie there are some story elements sprinkled in. The attempt to try to string the collection of situations together really doesn’t work too well because the story elements are so thinly developed.

Should You Watch This Movie?

If you are in any way homophobic stay as far away from Bruno as you can because it won’t change how you feel about homosexuals it may even deepen your opinion of them. For anyone else wanting to see Bruno it would be impossible for me to say if you will enjoy it or not mainly due to the fact that the entire purpose of the movie is to be as offensive as possible.

My Rating (Out of 13)