Review: Brüno Kinda Hilarious, Kinda Hard to Watch

Stunt comic Sacha Baron Cohen again pulls pranks on unsuspecting bigots and dilettantes, with mixed and often cringe-worthy results

Review in a Hurry: Sticking with the wildly successful Borat formula, Sacha Baron Cohen uses his guerilla tactics to "expose" the vanity and vacuity of Hollywood and the American South. His high-wire humor can be very funny, but here the groans often drown out the giggles.

The Bigger Picture: Cringe comedy, where laughs arise from provocation in hyper-real situations rather than contrived gags, is a risky hook for a feature-length film. But stunt-comedian Cohen pulled it off with Borat, springing uneasy (but hilarious) pranks on unknowing subjects, from U.S. congressmen to frat boys to upper-crusty Southerners.

Here, Brüno throws similar high jinks at unknowing groups of regular folk and celebrities, but it turns out that Cohen's fake Austrian fashion correspondent is no Borat. The goldilocked character is more mean-spirited, and so is his movie. So while Cohen's taboo-busting style of comedy is gripping to watch—especially when he interviews an actual terrorist—it exacts an unsavory amount of humiliation that's too misanthropic to be considered enjoyable.

Like Borat, Brüno's a mockumentary comprised of a series of stunts, with some narrative pushed in between. Brüno wants to conquer Hollywood, gets quickly blacklisted by Paula Abdul (after a humiliating interview) and decides to seek the spotlight in friendlier climates: off to Alabama! To figure out how to appeal to American men, the in-your-face gay Brüno hangs out with armed hunters and some rascally blue-collar swingers and, of course, provokes them to show off uglier sides of their personalities. (Harrison Ford and presidential candidate Ron Paul also show up as targets.)

Cohen is at his best when he exploits the narcissism of the elite for laughs. Like when crashing a Milan fashion show runway or coaxing Abdul to sit on top of a day laborer's back while he interviews her about her charity work. But do we really want or need an exposé about the fact that—spoiler!—people in Hollywood are dilettantes and that yokels from Dixie are freaked out by gays?

Too often Cohen turns his merciless lens on ordinary folks, and so even if they are backward bigots, the movie becomes a mean-spirited test of endurance rather than an actual comedy.

The 180—a Second Opinion: Cohen has an unbelievable amount of audacity and a whip-smart mind. So there are some riotously funny scenes of provocation (three words: Texas talk show).