JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Brüno starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the gay Austrian fashion TV presenter is rated R-18 but it’s chopped up and missing entire scenes. If you’re planning to see it in a theatre be warned.

Much of the movie is hilarious. Popcorn shot out of my nose during the scene where Bruno contacts his dead boyfriend via a psychic medium, and the amazing thing is I wasn’t even eating popcorn. The scene where Bruno takes a course in self-defense is both cheap and priceless. I don’t know anyone else in the movies who would have the chutzpah to refer to his asshole as ‘Auschwitz’ and refer to himself as the greatest Austrian after Hitler.

But as the movie unfolded we noticed that Baron Cohen, who acts opposite unsuspecting real people (His Borat generated a truckload of lawsuits), was choosing very soft targets. Charity PR consultants, homophobic rednecks, church-based groups that “cure” homosexuality—how hard is it to make fun of those?

I think that Sacha Baron Cohen’s vast intellectual resources would be put to better use taking on the powers that be—the Establishment—and exposing their shallowness and stupidity. Mocking the powerless is too easy. It’s just lazy.

Later, real-life celebrities join Bruno in jeering at the pursuit of celebrity. So the famous are in on the joke, but the regular people are the butts? Bruno the movie becomes a victim of its own irony. It starts out ridiculing celebrity, but eventually exposes itself as another frothing wannabe. Bruno daahling, that’s cheap.