Funkyzeit mit Brüno (photo: Universal)

Brüno, Brüno, Brüno. Here’s a handful of reactions and criticism:

From Roger Ebert:

“Bruno” is a no-holds-barred comedy permitting several holds I had not dreamed of. 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. There should be a brief segment at the next Spirit Awards with John Waters conferring the Knighthood of Bad Taste to Sacha Baron Cohen. If he decides to tap Cohen on each shoulder with his sword, I want to have my eyes closed.

To describe Cohen’s character Bruno as flamboyantly gay would be an understatement. He makes Bruce Vilanch seem like Mike Ditka. Bruno is disgraced in his native Austria when he wears a Velcro suit to Fashion Week and sticks to backdrops, curtains and models. It’s slapstick worthy of Jerry Lewis. Then he flies to Los Angeles with Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten), his loyal worshipper, vowing to become a celebrity.

As in his 2006 hit “Borat,” Cohen places his character into situations involving targets who may not be in on the joke, and have never heard of Bruno or, for that matter, Sacha Baron Cohen. Some of the situations may be set up with actors, but most are manifestly the real thing. I include an interview in which Bruno lures Rep. Ron Paul into a hotel room, his appearance on a Dallas TV morning show, the screening of a TV pilot before a focus group, counseling with two Alabama ministers dedicated to “curing” homosexuals and a gay wrestling match before a crowd that is dangerously real.

From Jon Davies, in xtra.ca:

Enjoying Brüno means being able to stomach seeing a queer in danger — even though you know full well he will survive, and that he is actually straight. The real-life situations that Baron Cohen puts himself in are nothing short of death defying. The film’s thrilling shock-shtick comes from how far he is willing to torture straight people with his provocative homosexiness (complete with in-your-face extreme kink theatrics) and his strategic strikes of high-fashion flaming femmitude. Brandishing a bleached, asymmetrical haircut, the most ridiculous and revealing high-fashion outfits ever assembled, a hilariously subzero intellect and impoverished ethical system and a feeble grasp of the English language, Brüno is the archetype of the superficial, spoiled, sex-obsessed (and supposedly, 19-year-old) Eurotrash white gay princess. He is truly a fag to watch out for.

[ ... ]

Brüno is brilliant because he is so extreme a caricature; the film will cause walkouts both by homophobes and by people who interpret Baron Cohen’s razor-sharp routine as itself homophobic. Created by heterosexuals, the film throws down a gauntlet to queer filmmakers to take more risks.

From AO Scott, in The New York Times:

But anyone made uncomfortable by Brüno’s extravagant incarnation of a silly, retrograde stereotype of gayness may be relieved and amused to see the panic and confusion he causes in others. And it is of course these others —mainly white Southerners, with a mostly African-American talk-show audience thrown in, perhaps for balance — who are the real targets of the film’s humor. Mr. Baron Cohen and Mr. Charles’s search for ugly Americans yields a meager bounty compared to “Borat,” partly because the success and notoriety of that movie diminished the ranks of potential patsies. This time the filmmakers went to Alabama and Arkansas, set up a barrel with a “Free Fish Food: All You Can Eat” sign, and blasted away.

From Michael Musto, in La Daily Musto:

[Is Bruno Good For The Gays?] Well, sort of maybe not, but also kind of yes. I generally enjoyed the film and feel Sacha Baron Cohen comes from the same school as Mel Brooks, one where you deflate a stereotype by embracing it so hard it bursts. I also feel that, while in the old days I was railing at damaging LGBT portrayals in Silence of the Lambs and Basic Instinct, nowadays there are way more representations out there, and at least this one is wildly sexual, as opposed to all the bland, sexless gay stereotypes you usually see.

From Peter Tatchell, at The Independent:

While the film scores plenty of laughs by mercilessly exposing dim-witted homophobes, Brüno’s persona also embodies some really lazy, crude gay stereotypes. A sex-obsessed “cockaholic”, he is a shallow bitchy queen who uses and abuses everyone around him. Not nice.

On the plus side, ultra-gay Brüno will make many bigoted straight people feel uncomfortable, a delicious prospect. But quite a few gay men watching this movie may also squirm.

Does Brüno reinforce or undermine homophobia? I am not sure. If Cohen’s intention was to mock prejudice, this film doesn’t always pull off the money shot. Compared to Borat, it’s more hit and miss.

From Hank Stuever, at The Washington Post:

But nothing can interest the gays quite like monitoring how they are treated in movies and TV.

It seems the gays have found, if not a friend in Brüno, at least a very (very) tenuous ally in his over-the-top (and under-the-bottom) stereotype.

After watching Brüno, a character played by Sacha Baron “Borat” Cohen, traipse across America and incite whatever homophobic responses and misadventures he can (especially in such places as Arkansas and Alabama), gays seem ready to accept that “Brüno,” which opens tomorrow, will not hinder their hopes for pop-culture progress. Nor is it likely to inspire any. What “Brüno” inspires in gays is a lot of talking and typing and thinking.

[ ... ]

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. (Or being mocked in movies. Thanks again, Oscar Wilde.) Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, there is an investigation launched into a police raid of a gay bar two weeks ago, at which patrons claimed cops acted violently and the cops claim they were groped in sexually suggestive ways. It all sounds like a Brüno sketch sans Brüno, only with the sad fact of being all too real.

The credits roll, and you walk out of the theater, blinking, wondering what just happened, wondering at the very least how come all the straight actors and straight filmmakers have the market cornered on gay jokes. What is Brüno going to teach us, other than sex is basically a total gross-out? You throw away your large soda and return to the world that exists outside of movie theaters, still a second-class American in a number of measurable ways.