Directed by Larry Charles
The world didn’t react all that much when comedian Sacha Baron Cohen created the notorious rapper Ali G, but when his creation Borat hit the cinema screens in 2006, ripples were felt all over the world. He made audiences cringe at ridiculous prejudices as he exposed hypocrisies by allowing people to make fools of themselves with the help of Larry Charles’ guerrilla-style filmmaking. Baron Cohen now tells us that Borat is so 2006 and, as the gay fashionista Bruno, he is running around alarming a whole new set of people with his outrageous and provocative antics.
It was the risky provocations that earned millions of dollars for the makers of Borat, and Bruno now wants to become the biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler. As the production team travel through Europe, America and the Middle East, they skate a very narrow line between getting footage that will guarantee laughs and getting arrested for breaking the law. Actually arrests were made when Bruno successfully crashed the Milan fashion week in a Velcro suit, but the results are worth it. Unfortunately, the film becomes a series of skits, with some being funny and others just cringe-worthy, and there isn’t much to link them together other than Bruno’s desperation to become famous.
There are many laughs to be had when the clueless participants are confronted with Baron Cohen’s bizarre antics, but it all wore a bit thin for me. I began to wonder if, instead of using humour to highlight people’s prejudices, it was just a chance for all the straight people surrounding me at the screening to have a good laugh at some extreme stereotypes … and heaven forbid, secretly think it reflects all gay people. The highlight for me was the last sequence where Baron Cohen is joined in a sing-along by Bono, Snoop Dog, Sting and Elton John.
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