Brüno

Posted May 24, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Brüno is the Austrian host of Funkyzeit, the most popular German-language show of its kind outside of Germany. When one day he makes a disgrace of himself during a fashion show, he loses all credibility of being “cool” with his fan base and when he gets fired he decides to go to the US in order to become world famous…

Sound and Vision:
The image differs depending on the scene. Some (interviews) are really good but plenty of the “realistic” footage is plain bad. Aliasing pops up here and there and grain often goes off the scale. Overall it’s not too bad seeing the source material, but saying it’s good would be an overstatement.

As this movie has a documentary style, we didn’t have high expectations for the sound despite there being a DTS-HD track available. Still, the surround speakers do get some piece of the action here and there and overall it’s better than expected. But we already said our expectations weren’t high so take that into account.

Extras:
– Commentary
– Alternative Scenes
– Deleted Scenes
– Extended Scenes
– Interview with Lloyd Robinson

Euhm… these extras are just as boring as the movie is.

Conclusion:
With Borat, Sasha Baron Cohen made a world hit. The comedy was crude but he also criticized the average Joe Schmuck in the streets of LA in a way nobody had ever done before and as such the movie had some intelligence in it. With Brüno, Cohen follows a similar path as with Borat but instead of a Kazachstan dude we now follow a gay Austrian guy trying to become world famous and dedicated to doing whatever is necessary to achieve that goal. But it doesn’t work anymore.

The jokes are still over the top but not really funny anymore, too much things are clearly set in scene which makes you wonder how much is real and how much isn’t, and eventhough at times you do get a good laugh, overall the pace is too slow and you start getting bored. The fact that most good jokes have been shown in the trailers already also doesn’t help.

Cohen has probably cashed in quite a lot of money with both Borat and Bruno but it’s clear his gimmick has had its life and it’s time to let it die a silent death. Unless Cohen manages to suddenly find new inspiration, movies like Bruno should never be released again as they don’t add anything except for undeserved hype and people paying money for crap.

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