Totally Gay

The movie’s tagline claims “Borat was
so 2006.” And in a way, Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to his hit
comedy about a horny Kazakhstanian on a U.S. road trip is a
little different. But in so many other ways, Brüno is a lot
like the wildly hilarious Borat. For one thing, Cohen and
director Larry Charles take their camera into the real world, capturing
real people’s reactions to the very real things happening in front of
them. Last time Cohen brought a bag of his feces to the dinner table;
this time he has his anus bleached while fielding a phone call from his
agent. Cohen plays super-gay Austrian TV fashion-show host Brüno,
who heads to L.A. to become famous — “the biggest Austrian
superstar since Hitler,” he says. Like Borat, he manages to dupe and
get under the skin of various homophobes, celebs and pretentious
assholes. And like Borat, there are more set pieces than plot
here. Brüno crashes a fashion-show catwalk. Brüno plays an
extra on the TV show Medium. Brüno interviews Paula Abdul.
Brüno interviews (and comes on to) Ron Paul. Brüno adopts an
African baby (who he names OJ). Brüno joins two swinging couples
on their sex night. It’s totally funny and totally gay. There’s really
no way to top Borat, so Cohen goes for more offensive laughs.
Thought Borat‘s wrestling scene was too much? Wait till you see
Brüno‘s. And while Cohen takes it kinda easy on a minister
who promises to make the flamboyant Brüno straight (the
lispy-accented Brüno does tell the “gay converter” that he has
great “blow-job lips”), his hunting trip with a bunch of southern good
ol’ boys is uncomfortably brilliant. ***1/2
Gallucci)

This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2009.