Brüno 2009

Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies: It's certainly not that there aren't a few funny moments in the film. There are, but overwhelmingly, Bruno's stunts are demeaning, they are insulting and they are really cruel. Read more

Scott Von Doviak, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: A hit-and-miss brand of humor, as likely to leave you squirming from embarrassment as howling with laughter. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: ... it feels funny enough -- and that may be the unkindest thing of all you could say about a comedy Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Bruno offers both succor and sucker bait for liberal-minded viewers who may feel harassed by prevailing and ever-shifting cultural sensitivities. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Those who go in with their jaws clenched are bound to find offense. Better to focus on the stuff that works outrageously. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Baron Cohen is a genuine comic guerrilla, charging right to the front lines of the war against prejudice and sanctimony. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Inevitably, this follow-up to Cohen's guerrilla mockumentary hit is a substantial letdown, lacking the novelty of its predecessor. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's an exercise in offensiveness, an exploration of over-the-topness and a gleeful working of both sides of the street. What brings Bruno down, though, is sinful behavior. Mr. Baron Cohen commits the cardinal sin of unfunniness. Read more

Ted Fry, Seattle Times: Intolerance and outrage has never been funnier, and nobody incites it better than Bruno, Borat or Baron Cohen. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Cohen no longer has freshness and novelty on his side, but he's retained the power to shock, offend, provoke, unsettle, and most importantly, entertain a jaded, desensitized public. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: If Bruno is not quite up to the lofty standards of Borat, it is daring and sometimes insightful. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: While Cohen has teamed up again with director Larry Charles, Bruno feels protracted. When the filmmakers' luck dries up, they resort to staged fish-in-a-barrel events that make the movie a more desperate, less surprising exercise. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The problem with Bruno comes in mistaking blatancy for comic gold. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: There's good bad taste and then there's just plain bad bad, which is what describes most of Bruno. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: For all his idiocy, Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev was a more likable jester than Bruno, who is the sum of his nether parts. One is a naif in a strange land. One is a jerk no matter where he travels. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Outrageous, unnerving, brave, topical, revealing, appalling and consistently hilarious, Bruno manages to be both cutting-edge cultural commentary and post-modern comic genius. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie is a toxic dart aimed at the spangly new heart of American hypocrisy: our fake-tolerant, fake-charitable, fake-liberated-yet-still madly-closeted fame culture. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Bruno hinges on how uncomfortable we are watching a homosexual minstrel show; our PC excruciation is as crucial to the formula as the good ol' boys' irritation Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Baron Cohen's instincts for outrage are spot on. It's not insight we need at all right now, but a very sharp bonk on the head. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Even if this is the end, we must applaud his audacity, even if we can't always bear to watch it in action. Is this comedic genius? As Bruno would say: Ich think so. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Wholly unsuitable for children, yet propelled by a nagging puerility that will appeal only to those in the vortex of puberty, or to adults who have failed to progress beyond it. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: When moments seem like setups with actors, they turn tame. But when things feel real -- as when Bruno conronts an Arkansas wrestling-match crowd -- they can get scary-real. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: While Cohen's samurai satire has lost some of its edge, he can still leave audiences howling -- when they're not gasping in disbelief. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: More gut-bustingly funny than anything else out there right now. Read more

Sara Vilkomerson, New York Observer: Certainly, the film is worth seeing if only for the fascinating range in reactions (give 'em something to talk about indeed!). Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Too often, Bruno feels like Borat's weak-wristed brother, too much of it just a gay cliche aimed straight at the American bigot belt. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: A crude, cringe-worthy, and intermittently funny affair that triggers the gag reflex. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: For those of a non-Puritanical mindset, it's hard to deny that Bruno succeeds in being both outrageous and outrageously funny, and it's hard to damn a comedy, regardless of its faults, for those qualities. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Undeniably funny, but the targets are far too obvious. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The needle on my internal Laugh Meter went haywire, bouncing among hilarity, appreciation, shock, admiration, disgust, disbelief and appalled incredulity. Here is a film that is 82 minutes long and doesn't contain 30 boring seconds. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Cohen has come up with some marvelous satirical motifs; elsewhere, he's just showing how far he'll go to get a laugh. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The bad outweighs the good and the cringes outnumber the laughs in Bruno, a disappointment from Sacha Baron Cohen, whose Borat was one of the funniest movies of the decade. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: I don't know how many more times Baron Cohen can go undercover, but it looks as if he'll never run out of bigotry, idiocy and hypocrisy to spoof. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Although Bruno is sometimes a wickedly funny flick, the dubious techniques and repellent protagonist produce fewer real laughs than its predecessor. Read more

James Adams, Globe and Mail: It's a thing , not a movie -- if, that is, you believe a movie should be more than an accumulation of prankish set-pieces flimsily strung over 80 skimpy minutes. Read more

Jason Anderson, Toronto Star: Bruno's greatest outrages here will still elicit howls and shrieks, as well they should. But our fabulous Austrian friend is no comedy revolutionary, only a cruel and silly stereotype in leopard-print underwear. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: What's lacking in the presentation, Baron Cohen makes up for with sheer ballsy, outrageous bravado. He bulldozes you with shock tactics. Bruno is a mesmerising invention, by turns repulsive and compelling. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: It's an odd cop-out for so fiercely gifted a comedian.... This is not a man who is doomed to be Allen Funt, or for that matter, Ashton Kutcher. He doesn't need to rely on the easy titillations and voyeuristic pull of reality TV. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Skeptics might not swallow it all, and thinner-skinned folks will surely be offended. But no one will deny that Baron Cohen is fearless in his pursuit of rowdy laughs. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: There is also a pronounced nasty streak to the innumerable provocations staged by the title character that curdles the laughs and wears out the flamboyant Austrian fashionista's welcome within the picture's brief 82-minute running time. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Outrage is entertainment! Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Bruno is no Borat. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Bruno is a one-joke character in a one-joke movie, and it's a joke Baron Cohen beats into the ground. Read more