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Bruno

EMAILPRINTUniversal Pictures

Bruno reviews
54
6.0 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 231 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy

Written by: Peter Baynham (& story)
Jeff Schaffer
Dan Mazer, Anthony Hines
Sacha Baron Cohen

Directed by: Larry Charles

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 10, 2009
DVD: November 17, 2009

Running Time: 83 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for pervasive strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity and language

Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Alice Evans, Trishelle Cannatella, Sandra Seeling, and Ben Youcef

After being ousted from the fashion community during a hi-profile mishap on a Milan runway, the uber-famous fashion correspondent, Bruno, heads to the U.S. to try and straighten himself out.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

91

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

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.

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

You'll hoot and holler as it strips down its targets and sticks it to them, hardcore. Baron Cohen is the pure, untamed id of movie comedy.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

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88

TV Guide Jason Buchanan

With Bruno, Baron Cohen essentially turns a carnival mirror on society, and some people simply aren't going to like what they see. This is satire at its most confrontational and incisive.

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83

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

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.

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80

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Funny as it is, Brüno could not be as shockingly uproarious as "Borat." No matter how well retold, a joke necessarily loses explosive force the second time around. But a great gag is a thing of beauty forever--so, too, a comic performance.

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75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Probably more gut-bustingly funny than anything else out there right now.

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75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's hard to deny that Brüno succeeds in being both outrageous and outrageously funny, and it's hard to damn a comedy, regardless of its faults, for those qualities.

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75

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

The real genius, if that is what it is, behind Sacha Baron Cohen's crude, shocking and explosively funny Brüno is the fact that the filmmakers actually found enough gullible human targets.

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75

USA Today Claudia Puig

Brüno offers more shock value for your moviegoing dollar than any other movie this year.

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70

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Packed with filthy jokes, insane sight gags, and body parts used in decidedly uncommon ways, Brüno is hands-down the dirtiest R-rated movie you'll see this year.

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70

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

Like a wayward love child of Lenny Bruce and the Three Stooges, Brüno is an idiot savant of penetration -- breaking through borders, boundaries and anything that resembles good taste on his way to whipping up as much cultural anarchy as he can. I would guess Brüno is holding on to an R rating for this sublimely spicy soufflé by the skin of his, well, let's just not say.

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70

Variety Todd McCarthy

Undeniably funny, outrageous and boundary-pushing, this further documentation of Sacha Baron Cohen's sheer nerve will draw an abundant share of "Borat" fans.

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70

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Is Brüno riotous? Yes, more so than "Borat," in which Baron Cohen's targets were ducks in a barrel and largely undeserving of ridicule. He doesn't aim much higher here, but his tricks are more inventive.

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67

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Crude both in form and content while at the same time capable of evoking explosions of shocked and, often, shamed laughter.

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65

NPR Bob Mondello

Director Larry Charles has made Bruno a tighter, better-looking film than "Borat," which is not necessarily a good thing on those occasions when you suspect it of scripting rather than just observing.

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60

Empire Damon Wise

A patchy, hit-and-miss comedy with a few outrageous highs and a lot of just-okay padding, Brüno suggests that Sacha Baron Cohen's in-your-face fool routine sadly isn't working any more.

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60

Time Richard Corliss

The problem with shock comedy is that it works in its purest form only the first time. Where do you go after you've gone too far? No artist can get heads to swivel and stomachs to turn indefinitely.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) James Adams

Brüno is likely to be the funniest thing you'll see on a screen this summer. Which is precisely its problem: 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.

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50

Slate Dana Stevens

The humor of Brüno is arguably crueler and more misanthropic than "Borat's."

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50

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Parts of it are brilliant; some of it feels tired and overplayed. Cohen has come up with some marvelous satirical motifs; elsewhere, he's just showing how far he'll go to get a laugh.

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50

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

There are some solid, outrageous laughs here--most of them involving anal sex--but don't expect a second lightning strike.

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50

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

There's good bad taste and then there's just plain bad bad, which is what describes most of Brüno.

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50

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Brüno is what "Borat’" was too well-done to be: a publicity stunt about publicity stunts.

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50

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A crude, cringe-worthy, and intermittently funny affair that triggers the gag reflex. I sincerely can't tell you whether I was choking with laughter or keeping from choking.

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50

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Extraordinarily raunchy, occasionally funny.

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40

The New York Times A.O. Scott

In spite of Mr. Baron Cohen and Mr. Charles’s high-level skills and keen low-comic instincts, Brüno is a lazy piece of work that panders more than it provokes.

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40

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Bruno is only intermittently funny and all too often the "ambushes" of celebrities and civilians look staged. The movie is even a tad -- dare we say it? -- tedious.

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38

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The low points in this movie aren't just catastrophic: they're bewildering.

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30

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Seems fatally out of tune, with every staged encounter falling as flat as the protagonist's hot-ironed bob.

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30

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Forget satire; this guy doesn't want to scorch the earth anymore. He just wants to swing his dick.

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30

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The film may have only the best of intentions, but it tries way too hard and ends up being shallow, superficial, and only sporadically funny.

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25

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The bad outweighs the good and the cringes outnumber the laughs in Brüno, a disappointment from Sacha Baron Cohen, whose "Borat" was one of the funniest movies of the decade.

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10

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Here’s the bad news: Brüno is no "Borat." Here’s the worse news: Brüno crosses the line, like a besotted sprinter, from hilariously to genuinely awful.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 231 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Caleb G gave it a0:
I usually force myself to finish all movies and books, no matter how bad, but I walked out of this movie. Such a disappointment compared to Borat. I give it a 0/10 because I actually asked for my money back.

Kevin Stanfield gave it a5:
ProudAmerican EvangelicalChristian gave it a1: I was under the impression this movie poked fun at homosexuals. We were shocked and appalled to find out the movie did not do this, but rather made fun of decent ordinary Americans! I was appalled. What is so funny about that? My stomach turned as I watched good Christian Americans made to look like fools. This movie is a disgrace to America! It should be banned. -ProudAmerican EvangelicalChristian I have not seen this movie but I was thinking about renting it. I was reading reviews that users have posted on it. P.A.E.C. said that this movie was un-American and should be banned but banning this movie would be un-American, one of the most important things we should value as an American is freedom of the press.

MiKE gave it a2:
What happened!?!?! Borat was a close to being a masterpiece, yet Bruno is total crap! Why does bruno have to be so mean spirted? The movie should of been so much more!! way more. yet all we got was alot of sick jokes.

Alan Lawrence gave it a5:
"Bruno" is a hit-and-miss affair. But as a huge fan of Sasha Baron Cohen's brilliant HBO "Ali G Show" (Rent it!!!), I also found "Borat" to be hit-and-miss. I've seen enough Cohen-as-Borat flat out works of genius on "Ali G" to make "Borat" more of a 'been there' affair (although the nude wrestling match in particular was beyond hysterical). In my view the problem with "Bruno" is that because Cohen's "Ali G" Bruno character was never well fleshed out, a Bruno movie just didn't make sense. "Bruno" has some truly classic moments, though, which make it well worth renting (but the "The Ali G Show" is a must-see!!!:). P.S.. - I've never understood the outrage of some people towards Cohen. Those who find Borat (FYI, Cohen is Jewish) and Bruno (Cohen a homophobe???) to be offensive are probably more uncomfortable with their own prejudices (possibly unconscious in many cases) than their professed shock at the often crude and mean-spirited nature of Cohen's satire (all meant to shine a light on the crude, mean-spirited nature of many segments of American society in particular). Oh well...I guess the joke's on them.

Gavin P. gave it a10:
Cohen shows us just how stupid modern Western culture really is.

critic gave it a10:
Best movie ever. NO matter what you think of him, you have to admit he is a genius.

Elias C. gave it a2:
One of the most offensive and unwatchable films I have ever seen seeded throughout with strokes of brilliance that show that if Cohen can get it together, he can produce, write and star in a very good film. This is not it however. The first 20 minutes is simply nauseating. The editor should have left these scenes for the end after the viewer develops at least a little bit of empathy for the Bruno character. Overall, this film is a waste of talent.

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