Review: Brüno

Synopsis: An Austrian fashion show host comes to the US in pursuit of stardom. Brüno Brüno Brüno Brüno Brüno Brüno, cough cough, sorry about that.


Stars: Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten, some other people blah blah blah

I never saw Borat. There, I said it. Go ahead and start judging me for my lack of movie watching experience. I choose not to see it. I don’t like movies where people are embarrassed on purpose. I don’t like any movie where I just feel bad for someone all the time. Not to say I thought that would happen. I was probably afraid I would see myself reflected in peoples bigotry against foreigners. As much as I am a true California (read San Franciscan I suppose) when it comes to open thinking and the acceptance of other beliefs and cultures, I tend to think of foreigners as backward. Big problem for me really, I want to be fair to everyone. When it comes to gay culture, I am not squeamish. Now, that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with any queens on St. Patrick’s day (is that ignorant? I was going for funny) but I respect people, no matter their sexuality. What all this is leading to, is that this movie didn’t shock me at all. NONE TO THE SHOCKING. My thought is that maybe it will be shocking to the general population, assuming they are all homophobes. Or maybe I’m not giving them enough credit. I don’t really know. Here is what I thought.

What I Liked:
A few gags that got my funny bone- This is pretty unfortunate. Most of the funny stuff was shown in the previews. The HUNDREDS of previews. My girlfriend thought this movie had already been out for a while, and I can understand the mistake. You have probably already seen most of this movie just by going to other movies early enough to catch the previews. Now, there were some things that they couldn’t show obviously. Nudity, cursing, such and such. I thought the funniest parts of Brüno were the parts that were fully scripted and completely fake. A few “love making” scenes, and I use that term loosely, were very funny. And there is one scene towards the end of the movie that I loved, but not necessarily because it was funny, but more because I like it when stupid people are the butt of the joke. In fact, the parts where stupid were interviewed had me laughing too. It’s just so crazy that there are people so, in my opinion, sick out there. That could be turned around against Sacha Baron Cohen of course, but we already knew he was sick. But not because he is ignorant. That’s a whole different kind of sick.

What I Didn’t Like:
No offense guys, but it was kind of boring- Well, I feel like saying it was boring is kind of harsh. I was enjoying it the whole time, so to speak, but I wasn’t laughing, or disgusted, or angry at much at all. Like I said, if you have seen all the previews, you have basically seen the movie. There is one part I had seen in the previews where Bruno is at a clothing store that was not in the movie at all. They should have put that in there, because the whole flick was less than an hour and a half long. There could have been more I feel. I don’t know why they chose to put in so little.

What I Hated:
Eh, nothing here to hate really.

Verdict:
It wasn’t a terrible movie, it just wasn’t anything special. I’d say it was like something some amateurs could put together on YouTube, assuming they could get access to some celebrities. Even a connoisseur of gay jokes like me didn’t find it all that funny. You won’t miss anything if you don’t see this in the theater. Rent it if you must, but like I said, you aren’t going to be missing out on much of anything at all.