Bruno - C-

In theaters. Rated R!, 87 minutes. Trailer.

I really liked Borat (B+) and enjoy pretty much all of Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy. I found the Bruno sketches that were part of the Ali G Show to be some of my favorite. But with the film version of Bruno, SBC has blown it. Whereas Borat was somewhat realistic and was used to prod multiple cultural issues in a semi-intelligent manner, Bruno is a dumbed down and raunchy for-the-sake-of-it bomb. Click below for more from a disappointed Lawyer:

Maybe I'm overly sympathetic to folks who aren't comfortable with homosexuality or just southerners in general, but 90% of the film just doesn't resonate or produce any laughs or worthwhile social commentary. The other 10% is pretty funny, and I laughed out loud during the military scenes (HELLO!), the baby model parent interviews, the charity interviews with the twins and the cage fight at the end. The film is overly reliant on nudity and raunchiness for laughs and is doesn't work. I almost left 30 minutes in because it was so boring and uninteresting. To the right is the flyer that baited the people in Fort Smith, Arkansas to come to the cage fight. Boo-hissssssss.

Saturday update: Anthony Lane at the New Yorker comes to the same conclusion much more eloquently here.