Bruno Will Be Less Succesful Than Borat, Here’s Why

Bruno Review

Watching Bruno I felt the strange sensation of failure wafting off of it, at least in how it affected me personally.

And if anything I am a pretty strong target audience. I’m not easily shocked by homosexual imagery and I love Borat, so Baron Cohen’s humor certainly doesn’t really offend me.

But for some reason Bruno just could not keep me laughing. Here’s my analysis on a critical level of why.

Structure

In Borat Cohen played a racist Kazakhi journalist, and was so over-the-top overtly racist he made other seemingly normal people let their guards down and expose themselves as racist too.

Today, in a modern America we don’t expect people to overtly express racist sentiments. If I go to a gun shop and ask “What’s the best gun to kill a Jew?” I don’t expect the salesman to casually respond with a gun type.

But in Borat that’s exactly what happened.

In Bruno the titular character tries to draw laughs often by just being almost confrontationally homosexual, visiting another man’s tent naked at 3 in the morning or walking through an anti-gay rally tied to another nude man, for example.

Now we all know what’s going to happen when he does that. So what’s funny about that?

Reasonable Responses

You get the feeling the film expects you to look at Ron Paul, who reacts to Bruno stripping in front of him by saying he’s queer and leaving, and think oh isn’t he a homophobe.

But is it really that homophobic to say, he’s queer (obviously truthful to Ron Paul in that situation) and that he’s leaving? He didn’t use the 3 letter derogatory term, though I don’t know what people in the homosexual community feel about being called queer.

The point is, if you ambush someone like that it’s not that unreasonable for them to respond that way. He didn’t expose some shocking homophobia in Ron Paul. Ditto for the scene out hunting where Bruno repeatedly approaches another hunter’s tent in the night, what exactly did he think was going to happen?

Does it make someone a homophobe if they get upset for being woken up at 2 and 3 am to have sexual advances made on them?

Later on in the story Bruno tries to go straight and some of the same eliciting homophobia structure (like in Borat except with racism) shows up, and it is funny (how do I defend myself from a homosexual? he asks this of a martial arts expert). But this is the exception.

Familiarity

Cohen’s approach is also no longer novel to theatregoers, and it’s very noticeable the film follows a similar plot structure to Borat.

So that takes away some appeal as well.

Likeability

Borat was endearing. He was naive, which is a character trait people tend to like.

Bruno is self-absorbed and selfish. Not as endearing.

High Points

There are some genuinely funny bits in Bruno though.

definite spoilers

-The picture of the crucified baby with other little babies below is absolutely hilarious, I’m sure it’s insanely offensive to some people but it is extremely funny.

-The preceeding bit where Bruno interviews baby moms and asks if they are ok with their baby getting lipo, or appearing pushing another baby into an oven, is funny and disturbing.

-Also when he mixes up Hamas and Hummus is hysterical.

Respect

Sacha Baron Cohen literally sat across from a terrorist group leader and told him Osama looked like a dirty Santa (or a homeless Santa? I can’t recall the exact wording).

That is crazy. I can’t believe he was not shot, along with the entire camera crew.

The man knows no fear.

It must have been extremely difficult to do this entire movie and I give Cohen a lot of respect.

Finale

I have mixed feelings on the end of Bruno. It definitely works as satire, but again it’s so expected it loses some comedic value. No need to go into it in detail, if you’ve seen the film you know exactly what I mean. Let’s just say it involves a fight ring and something that is definitely not a fight.

Box Office

Bruno has already witnessed some sharp drops and it’s only been out since Friday.

I think the reason why is people aren’t finding it funny. I don’t think audiences are just dumb or homophobic, I genuinely think the film is not that funny, and the comparative lack of success I predict it will have down the road is the result of that.

-Dan Benamor