dangurewitch:

Bruno has some absolutely astonishing and hilarious sequences, and it’s impossible not to admire Sacha Baron Cohen’s sheer unparalleled nerve. But at its core, this character is mean and cheap in a way that Borat wasn’t. Borat was innocent - he didn’t know any better, he just wanted to learn, his naivety exposed others’ prejudices - and because of that, we rooted for him. Bruno, by contrast, is aggressive; his motives are rarely pure or goodhearted, and the “reality” scenarios he’s involved in here feel more like easy “Gotcha!” pranks than anything substantive.

Let’s face it - when someone confronts unprepared strangers with epic displays of penis and balls, I’m probably going to laugh. But those laughs are empty compared to those gleaned by the smarter, subtler scenes - the interviews with fame-hungry parents of baby actors, the celebrity publicists that pronounce Darfur “Defar” and think it’s part of “Iraqia.” That’s fucking funny, in part because it’s not about Bruno. He’s the catalyst rather than the focus, allowing the interviewees to inadvertently shock us rather than relying on his own genitals to do so.

Don’t get me wrong: Sacha Baron Cohen is sharp, hilarious and fearless, and I will gladly watch him do just about anything. But in this instance, I wish he’d had the insight to realize that the scenes with the most balls are often the ones with the least.

Agreed. Surprisingly, I actually really liked the film… even though I was horrified through most of it.