'Bruno': A Fashion 'Don't'

Which is not to say that you won't laugh—sometimes hard—at Baron Cohen's new movie. There are inspired moments when Brüno travels to the Middle East and brings together Israelis and Palestinians in a peacemaking attempt. Unfortunately, the dimwitted fashionista doesn't understand the difference between Hamas and hummus. Here, and in many of the movie's most effective sequences, Brüno is essentially a gay surrogate of Ali G, his deliberately clueless interrogations eliciting illuminating and astonishing responses. When he interviews stage parents and asks them what they would be willing to allow their kids to do to get a part, the answers are horrifying—and hilarious. This is Baron Cohen in fine form. But the Brüno who asks these pointedly dumb questions isn't the same Brüno who destroys a fashion show by wearing a Velcro suit or asks celebrities such as Paula Abdul to conduct an interview using a Mexican gardener as a chair. (A similar scene with LaToya Jackson was cut after her brother's death.) As a character, Brüno lacks Borat's internal consistency: it makes no sense that Brüno would put on a beard and pretend to be a macho wrestler—one who plants a lusty kiss on his opponent's lips to elicit hateful reactions from the beer-swilling crowd. Brüno wouldn't do that—Sacha Baron Cohen would. (And will anybody think it's news that that crowd isn't gay-friendly?)

Baron Cohen is, without doubt, the ballsiest comic of his generation—and one of the brightest. But it's hard to imagine him taking the guerrilla shock tactics of Borat and Brüno any further. Outrage works best as a means, not an end, and somewhere between Brüno's giant dildos and anal bleachings his tactics have run out of steam. Great dirty comedy can leave you elated—Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor had that gift of rude catharsis, and so does Baron Cohen at his best. But if Borat felt like it was opening daring new doors, Brüno feels like the end of this particular road. His methods—how he pulls off his stunts and dupes his victims—have become more interesting than the results. Something's amiss when you realize you'd rather be watching a documentary on the making of Brüno than the thing itself. His next comic assault will require a radical reinvention.

© 2009