Bruno

[Borris]

I was at an advance screening of Bruno last night and thought I'd share my thoughts on it.

[Show spoiler]Bruno is a story about the titular Austrian and his attempts to become world famous after he looses his local television show after a mishap on a fashion show runway. His journey takes him to America where he meets several people that help guide him to world fame. Along for the journey is his assistant's assistant, who just happens to be the only person left that belives in Bruno after he looses his Austrian show. Bruno tries several things to gain his world fame including starting a celebrity talk show featuring Paula Abul and Harrison Ford, becoming an extra on a TV show, adopting a world-issue for charity, making a sex tape, and even going straight.
At one point, there was going to be a scene that involved Latoya Jackson and Bruno looking through her iPhone and then reading out Michael's phone number to his assistant. This scene has been cut from the final print. The final runtime was just at 80 minutes.
While I found the original Borat to be frickin' hilarious, I thought Bruno felt a little bit forced with the situations seeming a little too staged. It's obvious that Sasha leaned on the studio (Universal) for a few of his gimmics including a TV talk show where he is a guest and introduces his bartered African child. The set looks very similar to part of the Jerry Springer set that is also owned by Universal. When Bruno gets a job as an extra on the show Medium (also NBC Universal) the humor starts to dry up. This is not to say that Bruno is devoid of humor; quite the contrary actually. But, it relies more on shock humor more often than dialog humor.
This shock humor starts shortly after the beginning of the film when Bruno introduces his little Filipino boyfriend and then performs various sex acts with him (covered up by black boxes). It returns later with Bruno performing oral on the spirit of Milli from Milli Vanilli at a psychic's office, and culminates in the end with a staged wrestling match that turns into something else.
Whereas Borat felt very candid, Bruno does not. It felt scripted right up to the end where Bruno sings a we-are-the-world-esque song with Bono, Sting, Elton John, and Snoop Dog. One of the best lines of the film is when Snoop Dog refers to Bruno as "the white Obama".

Overall 5/10
Worth a rental or matinee, no repeatability

Movie not reccomended for kids or people that hate either gays, straights, swingers, Jews, Africans, African-Americans, whites, Filipinos, Germans...or Hitler. They are all made fun of. Enjoy.