Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Way back in March of this year Universal screened about 20 minutes of BRUNO at SXSW. They showcased three key scenes… Bruno interviewing the parents of toddler models, Bruno bringing his African “gayby” onto a Dallas talkshow and Bruno’s transformation into Straight Dave, host of an extreme fighting show being staged in Arkansas.

These scenes had me doubled over in laughter. Read my initial thoughts here, but even then Sacha Baron Cohen was up-front about the footage being much longer versions of what will end up in the final film. Having seen both I can’t help but miss the flow of the original, longer cuts. To a small degree that hurt the final product for me.

I was trying to figure out why I was getting hung up on that while watching the full film and I think it has something to do with the movie format vs. a TV show format like DA ALI G SHOW. The longer cuts felt like a more polished, bigger budgeted segment of that show and has a feeling of really being the viewer into that situation.

Now the movie is really funny, extremely graphic and kind of awe-inspiring in just how far Cohen is willing to go to find the humor. There are more than a few situations where he could have been hurt or killed with the buttons he was pushing. I still can’t believe the gigantic balls he had to track down a terrorist leader and insult the dude and his religion… in his own home!

And if nothing else Cohen really pulls back the veil and the ugly face of homophobia in this country. Not only is it brewing beneath the surface, but it is red-faced and dangerous.

There’s no doubt in my mind that homophobia is (slowly) on its way out. I remember when I first heard of the gay marriage issue in a political sense I thought it was just a talking point. “Who cares? How is this even an issue?” was my thought and a thought I believe is shared by the majority of my generation. But the fact is it is still a big issue.

I think my main problem with the movie was the need to have such a strong narrative through-line. Baron spends so much time setting up the character and those around him that the scripted stuff spills over into unscripted situations (the stuff they sell in the trailers and that everybody is showing up to see) causing many people to doubt the legitimacy of the tough spots Bruno is getting himself in to.

That said, I don’t doubt the reality of most of what goes on in the movie, at least in the people and their honest reactions to Bruno, which is all that’s really important. The whole scenario could be fake… they could be in soundstages instead of hotel rooms for instance… but what really matters is that the subject isn’t in on the joke and their reaction is honest, for good or bad (preferably bad… like Ron Paul’s overuse of the word “Queer”… because that’s a lot more entertaining).

Bruno as a character pushes a lot more buttons than Borat, but I found Borat to be a funnier character. Maybe it was fresher or maybe I just prefer the clueless foreigner to the over the top gay stereotype. And no, that’s not a slam on Cohen. Of course Bruno’s an over the top gay stereotype… that’s the point. Bruno’s the nightmare image of homosexuals that cause neo-cons to wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

That’s when the character works the best, when he’s used to make those people extremely uncomfortable and bring the homophobic anger to the surface. We see it at a Swingers party, with a group of hunters and with the scariest gathering of Ultimate Fighting fans in Arkansas they could have possibly recruited.

Bruno definitely works in that regard. It’s edgier and more political than its predecessor, but not as funny for me personally. It’s quite possible I feel this way because I saw three of the funniest sequences of the film months in advance of the movie, but I also saw the remarkable naked wrestling scene at Comic-Con before seeing Borat, so maybe that’s not the reason.

Hell, it might all come down to expectation. After diving into DA ALI G SHOW and experiencing BORAT I was so primed to see this new movie. After seeing turd after blockbuster turd this summer I kept saying “At least we have BRUNO and DISTRICT 9 to look forward to.” So maybe I had higher expectations than I should have, especially after loving that footage from SXSW.

Whatever the case, I liked the movie, but didn’t love it like I thought I would. I laughed. I was along for the ride, but it just didn’t really wow me at any point. I’ve talked with people who hated the movie, thought it was all staged, and people who love the movie from beginning to end. I ended up somewhere in the middle. What about you?

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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