Bruno (2009)

3/5

Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno is a vulgar, offensive comedy that works. No matter how disgusted, horrified, or shocked you are by the lengths he's willing to go, you laugh because he actually goes that far. He succeeds. And it's funny. The bare-bones plot follows a gay Austrian fashion reporter on his quest to become an American celebrity. He tries hosting a talk show with Mexican furniture, adopting an African baby like Angelina Jolie, and even becoming heterosexual. But the fashion world is not so quick to accept him.

Where the movie succeeds, it does so brilliantly. Yet the comic moments are not as believable, frequent, or hilarious as compared to Borat. And it's very much the same movie, but with a different persona that Cohen takes on. The structure and style of Bruno are nearly clones of Borat, and what made me love Borat so much was that I had never quite seen a movie like it before. This movie will make you laugh, but it unfortunately doesn't live up to the expectations that Borat set up. It won't change anyone's opinion on his style of humor, but if you already know you like it, go check it out.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0889583/

Borat (2006)

4/5

Borat is one of the flat-out funniest movies I have ever seen. I was laughing the entire time. Almost every scene is one of those memorable ones that you can recall when this movie is brought up in conversation. What separates Borat from all the other "dumb" comedies to come out since time immemorial is that the funniest parts aren't scripted. He interviews people to get their (ludicrous) opinions, and these people and their viewpoints are real. It's horrifying to realize what kind of people live in our country. On a side note, the movie is extremely well-edited; no joke goes on for too long.

There are some disgusting, disgusting parts--even though you laugh, you somehow simultaneously recoil in horror. There is a grotesque amount of penis in this movie. Also, I felt the movie lose a bit of steam in the second half (when the plot came back), but it returned in full force not too long afterwards. Another thing: it's somewhat disappointing to find out that some stuff was staged and not real.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0443453/