Brüno

It’s outrageous and vulgar and rude and offensive and distasteful and disgusting and naughty and … funny, when the movie stays on target and keeps its focus.

Sacha Baron Cohen is back, but he’s not Borat anymore. He is Brüno – a gay Austrian TV host and fashionista who is seeking worldwide fame. After a horribly embarrassing incident that strips him of everything he holds dear, Brüno decides he must make a pilgrimage to the place where you can find fame and fortune, even if you really aren’t very good at anything. He’s off to Hollywood.

Can Brüno become as famous as Angelina Jolie or Madonna?

How about as famous as Nicole Ritchie?

Brody Jenner?

Those two kids from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody?

Brüno starts off as a hilarious lampooning of fame and the pursuit of celebrity, but Cohen and the gang run out of material. On one hand, we have that funny send up of people who are willing to do whatever it takes to become famous, but director Larry Charles, Cohen and the writing team only touch on part of it, and could have kept us doubled over with laughter if they stuck with it. The best scenes in Brüno ridicule, skewer and poke fun at those who seek fame for fame’s sake, which is great commentary and comedy.

However, they run out of material, or don’t want to go further with the idea. That’s when Brüno becomes Borat 2. It’s as if Cohen and his team were sitting around and started thinking, “What made Borat funny? Rednecks!” So, the crew is on its way to Alabama to shock people as much as possible with Brüno’s outrageous antics, which marks the end of his search for fame.

Brüno becomes another foreign guy with a funny accent trying to act as outrageous as possible to shock the people on screen for the benefit of those in the audience who want to laugh at those on the screen who are shocked. It’s a funny movie on its own, and could be a movie on its own, but Cohen did that with Borat. We started down a different path with Brüno, and it’s a path he could have followed to originality.

Enjoy Brüno for the funny moments, and you get plenty. Plus, I think part of the entertainment is trying to figure out who is on the joke. Some people throughout Brüno obviously are staged and know this is all just a candid camera-style attempt to surprise people because they seem to be acting too perfectly. Others give Cohen exactly what he wants.

Brüno is rated R for pervasive strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity and language.