Mr. Beaks's Inner Skeptic Tries To Ruin BRUNO!

For those of you who don't want your BRUNO experience spoiled, here's my capsule review: BRUNO is a relentlessly funny movie. It is also far more polished than BORAT - and this, in my opinion, is both a blessing and a curse. For those of you who don't mind knowing some of the big jokes going in, feel free to read on. For everyone else, feel free to check back on July 10th.

Remember when EYES WIDE SHUT needed cloaked naughty blockers during the orgy scene to avoid an NC-17 rating in the U.S.? Things done changed, my friends. Three-quarters of the way through BRUNO, Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles infiltrate a redneck swingers party because... well, it's a redneck swingers party, and they evidently want to find out if The Clap is airborne nowadays. Since we've already seen such dizzyingly debauched sights as a man slingshotting himself backward onto a fully erect penis, and the attempted, bare-naked seduction of an armed-and-pissed-off hunter, we're prepared for something perfectly awful as Cohen's confrontationally homosexual Austrian talk show host, Bruno, acquaints himself with the gaudily-attired participants (seriously, the men look like they wandered in out of this scuzzy Dave LaChapelle collage; the women aren't that much more attractive, but at least they're younger). Initially, Bruno corners one of the men outside and goads him into a fully-cloathed demonstration of different sexual positions. The guy is taken aback at first, but he finally relents and air humps Bruno as he simulates "doggystyle", "reverse cowgirl" and so on. It's kind of funny, but it's far too innocuous. And this is frightening because we know this scene isn't even close to peaking. How far are Cohen and Charles willing to take this? A few seconds later, we're watching these people fuck. For real. And the black bars aren't thick enough to leave open the possibility that they're faking it. (Take that, Kubrick!) For a moment, you feel sorry for the revelers. The joke seems to be "Hey, look at these rubes rut!" Then Bruno attempts to negotiate a three-way, and suddenly he's the heathen. And there's your punch line: these folks may be down with group sex, but they'll be damned if they're going to let a homosexual into the mix. Whereas Borat was often utilized as a sneaky sort of anti-Semite detector, Bruno immediately forces his subjects/prey to either make peace with his sexual orientation or let loose their inner homophobe. Since there are cameras running, those who might have a problem with Bruno's lifestyle generally keep their opinions to themselves. But Charles and Cohen are very skilled at finding ways to whip folks into a frenzy, and when they chum the waters with, say, a little race baiting (as they do when they drop in on THE RICHARD BEY SHOW), the results are uproarious and unnerving. Most comedians would be careful to strike an even balance between laughs and winces in a movie like this, but Cohen, to his credit, has no use for such moderation. For this reason, some viewers will find BRUNO far too ugly to take. Though it's all well and good when Cohen is victimizing clueless Hollywood publicists and oblivious celebrities like Paula Abdul, La Toya Jackson and Harrison Ford, the film starts drawing blood when he attempts to recruit infants for a remarkably tasteless photo shoot starring his adopted African child O.J. This is a classic, "I can't believe what I'm hearing" Sacha Baron Cohen sequence in which his character's inappropriateness is continually upstaged by the casual, real-life amorality of his subjects. For those of you who've never witnessed the awfulness of aspiring showbiz parents desperate to exploit their children for fame and fortune, this scene may very well drive you from the theater - and I say this because I saw a group of people bolt for the exit right around the time a mother was assuring Bruno that her child would be comfortable working around "lit phosphorous". And that's hardly the worst concession these monsters are willing to make. Even more disconcerting is the visit to THE RICHARD BEY SHOW, where layers of intolerance are peeled back as Bruno flaunts O.J. in front of an apoplectic African-American audience. At first, it's just Bruno and the crowd - and while they seem slightly put off by his demeanor, they're at least sympathetic to his single-parent plight. Then he starts talking about how he has to find a good man to help his raise his child, and, suddenly, he's on shaky ground with a fairly significant chunk of the group. Then he brings out O.J., and it is fucking bedlam. And while Bruno certainly does his part to stoke their ire by discussing his non-traditional child rearing notions (which includes showing off those aforementioned photographs), you can't help but acknowledge the fact that the trouble started when he outed himself. And yet the most discomfiting aspect of the scene is this: I can't convince myself it wasn't completely staged. It's obviously rigged in that a) the producers had to dig up Richard Bey, whose show has been off the air for over a decade, and b) Charles can emphasize the most heated reactions thanks to the black magic of film editing. But there's something too perfect about certain audience members' reactions; very often, they feel scripted or performed. The same is true of the climactic "Straight Dave's Man-Slammin' Maxout" set piece, where Bruno bait-and-swtiches a bloodthirsty crowd of Arkansas good ol' boys who think they're about to check out some bone-snapping, teeth-rattling ultimate fighting. On one hand, I have no trouble buying the idea of that crowd responding with that degree of outrage to what they get in lieu of actual combat. On the other hand, how do you film that scene and not get killed? And this goes quadruple for Bruno's trip to the Middle East, which includes an interview with the alleged leader of a terrorist organization. Again, remarkable if real; ho-hum if faked. While I understand that there's no such thing as truth in even the most scrupulously edited documentary, there's something incredibly distasteful about acting out stereotypes when you're purporting to capture "real" reactions to a fictitious provocateur. Interestingly, the scenes I'm least dubious about are those involving actual celebrities. For instance, the failed seduction of former Presidential candidate Ron Paul couldn't be anything but legit; ditto Abdul discussing her humanitarianism while sitting on a Mexican day laborer. But there does seem to be an element of trickery to many sequences in BRUNO. And since this is satire, not magic, I can't help but temper my enthusiasm - which was palpable immediately following the movie. I have no hesitation believing the hypocrisy and bigotry depicted (and perhaps "captured) by Cohen and Charles, but where's the fun - and what's the point of getting outraged - if some of these people are in on the joke (or saying anything just to make the final cut)? Here's the best I can do for now: BRUNO is a masterpiece of cognitive dissonance! It's a movie that challenges our preconceived notions of documentary truth! It's the most formally audacious comedy of the summer! It sucks being a skeptic. I want to be wrong. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks Update: According to the production notes (which hit my inbox minutes after posting this review), "Straight Dave's Man-Slammin' Maxout" was every bit as perilous as it looks on screen. They had to shoot the scene twice - once in Texarkana and another time in Fort Smith. The first attempt was a complete debacle (helped along by the sale of cheap beer), while the second attempt is what you see in the movie. What you don't see is the hours-long standoff that occurred outside the arena as the crew tried to hightail it out of there. The interview with the leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade took place in Bethlehem, and his agitation (as well as the danger faced by the crew) is very real. The swingers party and the Richard Bay episode are not addressed in the notes. I've fired off a couple of follow-up questions.