Bruno, one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s atypical personae, and his latest excursion into feature films, was absolutely hilarious. I spent a good portion of the movie laughing uncontrollably, which I haven’t done while viewing a film for quite some time. But that doesn’t mean the movie was amazing. It had its good qualities, its bad qualities, and qualities that turned from good to not so good due to repetition.

First off, I must explicate that this is not really a movie. It is not a cinematic adventure with an intriguing plot and masterful acting. Rather, it is a social experiment to observe how people react when put in outlandish situations. There was a story in there somewhere, but it was mostly pointless and merely served to connect the different interviews and situations he set for himself. However, for the sake of the review, I will give a quick summary.

Bruno (Cohen), a gay Austrian who hosts a show about fashion, becomes blacklisted from fashion related events after pulling a stunt at a fashion show. Subsequently he moves to California in an attempt to become famous. Along the way, due to his antics, he falls on some rough patches and learns that it is harder to become a famous gay Austrian than he initially surmised. There is a hint of a love story in there, but it is so minor that it is not even worth mentioning (but by saying that I have mentioned it, thus contradicting the latter part of the sentence, oh well). It is not much of a story, but again, it is not the point of the movie. Therefore, I will focus this review on the experiment aspect.

Personally, I enjoy these kinds of movies because I find the psychological implications to be very interesting. Watching how different people from varying socio-economic standings react to his jaunts is quite amusing. But what sets this movie apart from other films of this nature is his method. Sometimes he just does something shocking, but in other situations it is more of a slow progression. As in, he will place his subject (politician, red neck, etc.) in a seemingly normal setting and slowly dole out his craziness. As the interview/circumstance progresses, his actions become more and more bizarre, causing the subject to become increasingly uncomfortable. By the time he goes full-blown crazy it is too late for the target to just walk away, forcing them to fight their way out by either yelling or becoming violent. It is entertaining as well as fascinating. On top of that, there is a third, emotional response that one can encounter in this film – shock.

Seeing as how I have watched his previous film, Borat, and quite a bit of his television show, Da Ali G Show, very little of this film came as a surprise to me, but the parts that did were eye-popping shocking. For example, there was a scene where he held a casting call for a photo-shoot for toddlers. When questioning the parents to see what they would allow their kids to partake in, he threw in some rather disturbing scenarios as to observe how far he could take them. Surprisingly, the parents agreed to absolutely everything he proposed. They were so set on fame that they were willing to do whatever it took to get there.

However, as with Borat, the movie was longer than it needed to be. Yes it was very funny, but after the first half an hour the point was already made and the responses from the subjects started becoming repetitive. However, with Borat there was so much more variety because his purpose was to learn how to fit into American culture, and for that purpose he could talk to just about anyone who lives there. This lent the movie an extended sense of amusement and interest. With Bruno, on the other hand, there is only so much he can do. Being flamboyant and bizarre has become rather normal in many of the blue states. You can see odder things just by walking in the streets of New York. Thus his role was limited to California, due to his obsession with fame, and the southern part of the US, because they are still quite hostile towards homosexuality. These constraints caused the film to be somewhat repetitive.

Aside from these problems, I still enjoyed the film. The trick is to not go into it expecting much. It will not leave you with any deep, existential questions aside from, “how did he get away with that?” It will not make you cry, unless you find this as hysterical as I did and become all watery-eyed from laughter. And it will not teach you any life lessons besides remembering to always keep your handcuff keys within arm's reach or risk being stuck for quite some time, unless, of course, you are into that sort of thing. In the end, the movie is a hoot and a holler, and was worth every dollar (see what I did there?).