Brüno

Directed by Larry Charles

(R)

**

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Comic provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen returns.

I’m sad to report that “Brüno is no Borat,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. In 2006 Sacha Baron Cohen’s remarkable performance as a Kazakh journalist on the loose in America proved an “exercise in offensiveness, an exploration of over-the-topness,” and a fascinating lens on the country’s more unpleasant aspects. This time the British comedian targets American homophobia, playing a gay fashion journalist from Austria seeking fame stateside. But where Borat “simultaneously scandalized and delighted audiences,” Brüno just falls flat, said Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post. Borat’s interviews with unsuspecting targets “possessed the vertiginous sense of spontaneity, danger, and unwitting honesty.” Brüno’s encounters seem staged, their shocks mechanical and manufactured. Brüno could’ve been a “satiric contribution” to the gay-rights debate. But that discussion cries out for subtlety, and Baron Cohen’s crass humor seems “fatally out of tune.” Whether Brüno is good or bad for gays doesn’t matter, said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. Though Baron Cohen clearly enjoys joking about hot-button topics, the “trick to enjoying his ­movies is not to care too much.”