Showing posts with label Bruno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bruno. Show all posts
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sam' Review: Bruno
While I may sound like a pretentious d-bag, I believe that most people still do not get Sascha Baron Cohen’s act. His newest film, Bruno, made we wonder how a figure so popular can be so widely misunderstood. Film nerds, jocks, the young, and the old loved Borat. But they don’t love him for the same reason. I suspect the same will happen of this movie except to a much lesser extent than the Borat-mania that occurred last go around. In this film Cohen portrays over-the-top fashion reporter, Bruno. After losing his hit show in Austria, Bruno decides to go to America to become famous. His quest to be the most famous person in the world is used as the plot device to go between bits where Cohen does what he does best.
Needless to say the plot in this movie is incredibly thin (as is the love story with his assistant). The point of this is not to tell a great story, but to set up the sketches or bits he does with unsuspecting folks. As Bruno, Cohen shows us the dark underbelly of some of the idiots and bigots in this country, much like he did in Borat. He goes huntin’ with some good ol’ boys, tries to become straight (just like those stars Kevin Spacey, Tom Cruise, and John Travolta) and interviews seemingly insane stage parents who would put their child in many sorts of danger just to get them in a photo shoot. These prove to be funny and shocking which is what (I think) he is going for. What he isn’t going for is what I fear are two camps most people who aren’t in on the joke fall into:
1. Cohen is homophobic and propagating a message that all gay people dress ridiculous and love shoving crazy shit up their ass.
To the people that fall in this group, get off your high horse and look at what he’s doing. Of course he dresses insane how would he get the reaction of real homophobic people if he presented himself as a realistic human being? He shows up as what a homophobe would characterize gay people as in order to get them as riled up as possible. Yes, Cohen does ridiculous stuff like shove a remote up his ass or has crazy sex with his pygmy boy toy. He wants a laugh and he gets it. Anyone who believes that the shit he does in this movie is normal behavior is stupid.
2. This is funny, he’s gay, isn’t that inherently hilarious?
For all the weird shit he does in the movie I don’t think Cohen wants people leaving laughing at gay people in general. He wants people to laugh at this character who would never exist. The joke in one scene in the movie is when he is shackled up with his assistant in some bondage type stuff, funny I guess. But the joke is when they leave their hotel still shackled together without clothes and crash a gay bashing rally.
Of course I could be sitting in another camp of pretentious d-bags that watched Da Ali G show and think we get everything about Sascha Baron Cohen when what he really wants is us to just laugh at his dick. Whatever his intentions, Bruno made me laugh, for better or for worse. Not as funny as Borat, but what is?
B+
Needless to say the plot in this movie is incredibly thin (as is the love story with his assistant). The point of this is not to tell a great story, but to set up the sketches or bits he does with unsuspecting folks. As Bruno, Cohen shows us the dark underbelly of some of the idiots and bigots in this country, much like he did in Borat. He goes huntin’ with some good ol’ boys, tries to become straight (just like those stars Kevin Spacey, Tom Cruise, and John Travolta) and interviews seemingly insane stage parents who would put their child in many sorts of danger just to get them in a photo shoot. These prove to be funny and shocking which is what (I think) he is going for. What he isn’t going for is what I fear are two camps most people who aren’t in on the joke fall into:
1. Cohen is homophobic and propagating a message that all gay people dress ridiculous and love shoving crazy shit up their ass.
To the people that fall in this group, get off your high horse and look at what he’s doing. Of course he dresses insane how would he get the reaction of real homophobic people if he presented himself as a realistic human being? He shows up as what a homophobe would characterize gay people as in order to get them as riled up as possible. Yes, Cohen does ridiculous stuff like shove a remote up his ass or has crazy sex with his pygmy boy toy. He wants a laugh and he gets it. Anyone who believes that the shit he does in this movie is normal behavior is stupid.
2. This is funny, he’s gay, isn’t that inherently hilarious?
For all the weird shit he does in the movie I don’t think Cohen wants people leaving laughing at gay people in general. He wants people to laugh at this character who would never exist. The joke in one scene in the movie is when he is shackled up with his assistant in some bondage type stuff, funny I guess. But the joke is when they leave their hotel still shackled together without clothes and crash a gay bashing rally.
Of course I could be sitting in another camp of pretentious d-bags that watched Da Ali G show and think we get everything about Sascha Baron Cohen when what he really wants is us to just laugh at his dick. Whatever his intentions, Bruno made me laugh, for better or for worse. Not as funny as Borat, but what is?
B+
Jordan's Review: Bruno
Sacha Baron Cohen has balls. And he also has great comedic abilities, though sadly only the former are on display during Bruno his follow up to 2006’s smash hit, the infinitely superior Borat. Baron Cohen is a brilliant comedian—he has great timing, he’s great on his feet, and he has the aforementioned chutzpah to go after his subjects no matter how uncomfortable the situation. He also stays in character no matter how far over the line the situation gets, as evidenced in a moment when he is getting mercilessly flogged by a topless swinger.
So with all of those comedic skills at his disposal, how did Bruno fail so epically? Firstly, it is a complete rehash of Borat, from the foreigner coming to America, to the inevitable rock bottom and finally to a revelation that leads to happiness. This alone is not an issue however, as I would not have noticed these similarities if I had been laughing. Secondly, where Borat went after a variety of targets, Bruno mostly focuses on the easy marks—a gay converter, a group of rednecks, and of course, the military. While I love to see bigoted, closed minded conservatives humiliated as much as the next bleeding heart liberal, what I was looking for in this movie was not a feeling of moral superiority (which I already possess) but a few laughs. Every barb Cohen throws can be seen from miles away, because every one of the people he’s after has already been lampooned previously, and usually much better.
I also am woe to call the movie over-the-top. I’m the guy who thought the naked wrestling of Borat was the funniest thing since Team America’s minutes long puppet sex scene, yet Bruno’s antics seem engineered simply for shock value, and that doesn’t play out as humorous, mostly just unwarranted. Bruno as a character seems hopelessly trapped in a Teutonic view of homosexuality that has been satirized and dispensed with years ago, and so although he undertakes this stereotype to satirize people who actually believe homosexuals act in this way, it all feels very done.
I have great respect for Sacha Baron Cohen and I find him hilarious in most things. And when this movie made me laugh, it was only due to the exuberance with which he played his character and his commitment to staying in the moment, regardless of how ridiculous the gag. So I feel a bit like I did when I walked out of The Love Guru: I’m left wondering how a comedian I so greatly respect could waste years of his life making a movie that would only make me feel like I’d wasted hours of mine.
Grade: C-
So with all of those comedic skills at his disposal, how did Bruno fail so epically? Firstly, it is a complete rehash of Borat, from the foreigner coming to America, to the inevitable rock bottom and finally to a revelation that leads to happiness. This alone is not an issue however, as I would not have noticed these similarities if I had been laughing. Secondly, where Borat went after a variety of targets, Bruno mostly focuses on the easy marks—a gay converter, a group of rednecks, and of course, the military. While I love to see bigoted, closed minded conservatives humiliated as much as the next bleeding heart liberal, what I was looking for in this movie was not a feeling of moral superiority (which I already possess) but a few laughs. Every barb Cohen throws can be seen from miles away, because every one of the people he’s after has already been lampooned previously, and usually much better.
I also am woe to call the movie over-the-top. I’m the guy who thought the naked wrestling of Borat was the funniest thing since Team America’s minutes long puppet sex scene, yet Bruno’s antics seem engineered simply for shock value, and that doesn’t play out as humorous, mostly just unwarranted. Bruno as a character seems hopelessly trapped in a Teutonic view of homosexuality that has been satirized and dispensed with years ago, and so although he undertakes this stereotype to satirize people who actually believe homosexuals act in this way, it all feels very done.
I have great respect for Sacha Baron Cohen and I find him hilarious in most things. And when this movie made me laugh, it was only due to the exuberance with which he played his character and his commitment to staying in the moment, regardless of how ridiculous the gag. So I feel a bit like I did when I walked out of The Love Guru: I’m left wondering how a comedian I so greatly respect could waste years of his life making a movie that would only make me feel like I’d wasted hours of mine.
Grade: C-
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