"Brüno" may be the first movie in history to feature a talking penis and open at the top of the box office.
But that isn't to credit genitalia for the film's success,
Writer and lead actor Sacha Baron Cohen's follow-up to the left-field smash "Borat" is a full frontal assault on cultural homophobia and America's surprisingly tortured relationship with male sexuality. (The highest-grossing film of all time, the PG-13 "Titanic," has extensive Kate Winslet nudity, but a flaccid penis gets you a hard R without exception.) It's one of those movies, like "Team America: World Police" or "Pink Flamingos," where you can just picture the creative team brainstorming what they could add to piss off the Motion Picture Association of America even further.
But the cultural politics of "Brüno" are secondary to delivering laughs. Even after the huge success of "Borat," the new film at times seems like a feat of mad genius. In the same pseudo-documentary vein as "Borat," Baron Cohen brings his third and likely least-known character from "Da Ali G Show" to the big screen. Baron Cohen created "Da Ali G Show" in 2003, and it airs on HBO. The show consists of three personalities, Borat, Ali G and Brüno.
Brüno is the vapid, flamboyant host of a style show in Austria. Following a Velcro suit-related disaster at Milan Fashion Week, Brüno loses his show, so he sets out for Hollywood to become "the most famous Austrian since Hitler." The vignettes that follow are all about Brüno trying to attain the outer trappings and status of 21st-century notoriety, without any of the talent or hard work.
Mining humor or even sympathy with a character like Brüno is significantly more challenging than with the dopey Ali G or the naive Borat - he's an utterly vain narcissist, and his sexual antics are so aggressive that his interview subjects are more often than not simply defending themselves against a crazy person. That's why the overarching narrative is so important this time; no matter how backwards, unenlightened or unscrupulous the other person seems, it doesn't ever get cruel because Brüno is the butt of the bigger joke about the nature of celebrity.
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Director Larry Charles, a veteran of "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," is adept at the aesthetics of awkwardness. But "Brüno" clearly belongs to Baron Cohen and his amazing ability to stay firmly in character throughout. He even does so when a Southern dominatrix is whipping him with his own belt. He's so audacious sometimes, it frankly seems a miracle that Baron Cohen wasn't assaulted or even killed during filming.
The main comic tools he uses are the conviction of his performance and people's compulsion to stay cool on camera. The "Brüno" crew gets Paula Abdul to say some blather about charity while using a middle-aged Mexican day laborer as furniture. They get an Israeli academic and a Palestinian mayor to agree that hummus is nutritious and tasty, a small but important step in the quest for peace in the Middle East. Thankfully, they do not get Representative Ron Paul to make a celebrity sex tape with "Brüno."
The film climaxes with a mixed martial arts cage match in front of thousands of fighting fans. But the match devolves into a sloppy, seminude makeout session between Brüno and his lover. The coup de grace is a shot in which one particular spectator is reduced to weeping, in fear and anger, at the sight of two men kissing. The mock seriousness is the main laugh (it's in slow motion and scored to Celine Dion) but there's also something pitiable and thoroughly embarrassing about the display, as if Baron Cohen and the audience are asking, "What's the problem, guy?" and it turns out there's no good answer.
Baron Cohen may have exhausted his "Ali G" characters, but as long as he continues to press buttons like this, he will remain a vital figure in contemporary comedy.
