So... Bruno....

I'm sure most of you have heard about this film, Sasha Baron Cohen's follow up to the ridiculously huge hit Borat, where he went around in the guise of a middle eastern looking newsman from central Europe who came to America to learn about our culture and how his people could be more like us, and along the way trying to teach about his country's customs. We all know now that in truth, it was a "smash" style movie, where in it was filmed with the character dealing with real people in real situations, where the real comedy isn't really Borat, so much as people reacting to him and his ways, that "how far will we go to be polite and not make a fuss do to cultural differences" thing, that was the true comedy of Borat, I'm not sure how many people really get that about it...

Anyway, for whatever reason, Sasha Baron Cohen, creator of Borat and before him hilariously chav British hip hop legend Ali G, has decided to go around, doing what he did with Borat again, but this time with an insanely flamboyant homosexual and completely clueless German character by the name of Bruno, only this time he's pushed the "real" up about 15 levels. And I'm sorry, it just doesn't work for me.

See, Borat was offensive, but there was an innocent unintentional offensiveness to him, like, you know if anyone else had said "we're going to speak to real chocolate faced man!" and then spoke to a black man, you would be offended, but given the innocently clueless nature of Borat, you find yourself laughing at it, even if you feel bad about it later. However, with Bruno, Cohen plays him as a completely shallow, ignorant, self centered, and just plain rude. There is none of the charm of either Borat or Ali G, there is just an insulting ignorance to Bruno that I found myself not caring for at all. Like when he tells a fake talk show's all black audience that he's named his adopted African baby a "traditional African American name" and then tells him he's named the child after O.J Simpson, much to their outrage, or how he speaks to a Muslim extremist and repeatedly calls him a terrorist, and says things like "your god, looks like a dirty crazy man, or homeless Santa Claus", you don't laugh, you find yourself wondering how exactly this was supposed to work when Cohen wrote it out on paper, and who he's trying to insult more, Americans and how our culture has influenced the world, or Europeans that are stereotypically seen as Eurotrash like Bruno in most country's media.

Dunno, maybe its just me, but, this just didn't work for me, i'm sure there is an audience for it out there, after all pot smokers haven't had a good pot friendly movie yet this year, maybe they'll be the ones that go and see this, because I can't really see any sane person doing so, but thats just me i guess.

So who knows...?


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BC