If you thought seeing British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen wrestling a fat naked man in 2006’s Borat was shocking, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Cohen’s latest character Bruno, a flamboyant Austrian ‘fashionista’, manages to make Harvey Milk look like a giant prude in comparison. In fact, Bruno’s quest to become the most famous Austrian star “since Hitler” is shocking, vulgar and shamelessly defamatory. It’s also downright hilarious.
But who’d expect anything less from the man who brilliantly characterised Borat, a Kazak reporter whose ignorance and intolerance was matched only by the American public mocked in his faux documentary, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. When the film went on to make a box-office return as sizable as its title, it was only a matter of time until the next character from Cohen’s British TV series, Da Ali-G Show, was given the cinematic treatment. Four years later, Cohen is back serving up monstrous laughs in a far more outrageous, yet decidedly more calculated film.
By calculated, I mean that Cohen and director Larry Charles have opted for a more deliberate structure to Bruno than they did with Borat. Whilst it’s still essentially a string of outrageous skits, most of which see Bruno flaunt his homosexuality in front of unsuspecting straight-laced Americans, the underlying focus of each is to fulfil his desire of becoming a Hollywood celebrity. It’s ultimately a mixed blessing; on one hand this helps make for a more coherent film, but at the same time things tend to feel a tad more scripted than they did last time around.
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Events feel especially contrived during the first twenty minutes, where Bruno attends an Austrian fashion show dressed in a ‘prototype’ Velcro suit. When all the fabrics around him start sticking to him, he loses his cool and makes a big scene crashing onto the catwalk. As a result, he is “Schwartz-listed” by the fashion industry, losing his credibility as well as his job as a TV presenter. With only his adoring assistant’s assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten) by his side, who promises not to masturbate over Bruno…whilst he’s awake, he journeys to America with the dream of becoming a big-shot celebrity.
But how does one become a celebrity? Bruno first peruses the obvious avenues of film and TV, yet gets blacklisted once again when uses naked Mexicans for furniture during an interview with Paula Abdul. Thinking out the box, he takes a lesson from Paris Hilton and attempts to make a sex tape with Republican congressman Ron Paul. After “adopting” an African baby only attracts the attention of child services, Bruno realises that there is only one way he can become famous. He must turn straight.
The more scandalous his attempts at stardom become, the funnier Bruno is. It’s crude humour that revels in offending it’s audience, but it’s by no means stupid. Anyone can make a joke of homophobes, but Cohen also uses his flamboyant character to reveal a number of damming truths about the entertainment industry.The most astounding of all these arrives when Bruno interviews the parents of child models about what they are willing to allow their kids to do during a photo shoot. Operate heavy machinery? Not a problem. Re-enact the holocaust? Sure, why not. Lose ten kilos within a week, or undergo Liposuction? If that’s what it takes, then my girl’s up to it.
It’s this expository side of Bruno that marginally elevates it above other recent comedy gems such as The Hangover. Where the latter film only ever asks the audience to laugh and nothing more, Bruno challenges preconceived stereotypes and exposes alarming truths about the current state of society. There is a greater reliance on shock humour and a more noticeable presence of a script than there was with Borat, but it’s hard not to love the audacity of Bruno; a film certain to give the box office a real Anusstampfen.
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