Step 1: Get ready for more shock waves. With Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen again pushes the sociopolitical comedy envelope as far as he can. Although hilarious at times, unfortunately, Borat may have been his limit.
Step 2: Meet Bruno. He is a gay Austrian fashionista who hosts a popular TV show, interviewing the mucky mucks of the fashion world – until he nearly ruins a fashion show with his destructive Velcro suit and is summarily dismissed. So Bruno takes his fabulous self to America, to become the fabulous star he thinks he should be. Except no one cares who he is or whether he can make his penis talk. He trades an iPod for an African baby, has it shipped to him in a box and tries to make news that way, but it backfires as well. Finally, he decides he’ll try to go straight by joining the Army, going to swinger parties and organizing wrestling matches as a guy in Army fatigues named “Straight Dave.” Oh, who is he kidding?
Step 3: Meet the new Andy Kaufman. Baron Cohen joins a list of shock comics who never break character and put themselves in one outrageous situation after another. I mean, at one point in the film, Bruno and his assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten), are locked into an extremely compromising S&M position by chains, walking through an anti-gay protest looking for help. Really? Was that necessary? The good thing about the obviously very intelligent Baron Cohen, however, is he isn’t a complete whack job like Kaufman; there’s at least a method to his madness. And he looks pretty damn good.
Step 4: Remember the Kazakhstan. Structurally, Bruno is almost exactly the same as Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. He comes to America, tries to accomplish something, hits rock bottom, climbs back to the top. But while Borat is sort of infectiously endearing with his naivete, and therefore hilarious with his misinterpretations of the real America folk he runs into, Bruno just comes off as a spoiled brat. When he finds himself in these crazy real-life situations, the comedy isn’t as organic because we don’t care as much about the Austrian. To be fair, though, there are many laugh out loud moments in Bruno. When an Army officer screams at Bruno that his “fingers are in his alley,” he quietly shoots back, “Not yet.” And the comedian is always at his best when he is interviewing a real person, asking or doing bizarre things and just letting it evolve to see how far he can go before the jig is up.
Level of difficulty in watching Bruno: Moderately easy, but definitely only for adults. You can still expect your jaw to drop more than a few times.