REVIEW: Cohen's Bruno can't fill Borat's, um, shoes

How you felt about "Borat" will largely determine how you feel about Sacha Baron Cohen's latest punk'd fiction/documentary hybrid, "Brüno."

That the films are essentially identical in substance makes the comparison relevant. "Brüno" is not as good as "Borat," though the end result is virtually the same: Revulsion and laughter become nearly indistinguishable.

The reason "Brüno" doesn't rise to the level of Cohen's earlier work - besides the inevitable diminished returns of revisiting now-familiar territory - is that this time around the film is more interested in making fun than in making a point.

"Brüno" follows much the same "plot" as "Borat": A flamboyant foreigner comes to America seeking fame and fortune. In this case, Cohen plays Brüno, a disgraced, gay, Austrian fashionista who hopes to reinvent himself and make it big in Hollywood.

Along the path to stardom, Brüno engages in a series of ever-more-calamitous misadventures, some real and some fake. The film comments on everything from the cult of celebrity to homophobia. These disparate slices are then stitched together into a less-than-perfect narrative.

"Brüno" blurs the line between truth and fiction even more than "Borat," relying far more on its artificial elements than its prearranged interactions, thus losing a lot of the bracing authenticity that made the first film so invigorating.

The ability to laugh at ourselves is essential. But Cohen wants the laughter to catch, and in some cases to die, in our throats. If it doesn't, we may be just as culpable as his victims.

No one ever sees Cohen coming, which is half the fun. Surely, Cohen's victims must question their situation at some point. But by then it's too late, and they're committed. I feel bad for none of them. Cohen gives them lots of rope to hang themselves with and even provides the scaffolding. But they tie the noose and place it around their own necks.

Cohen's outlandishness nearly always provokes a response. Some of his victims are not rotten (though almost all are, to some degree, frauds) so much as simply gobsmacked by his bizarre behavior. How Cohen manages to stay in one piece, segment after segment, is beyond me.

Cohen jealously guards his real self with the same ferocity with which he prostitutes his avatars. His characters are willing to do and say just about anything; he is not. Cohen, who has little to no shame, is a vulgar mirror, reflecting an inconsistent, contradictory and fractured America.

His point is to make you feel deeply uncomfortable, even as tears of laughter roll down your cheeks. Much of "Brüno's" power comes from shattering taboos and crossing the line of what is acceptable with deliberate abandon.

While quite funny, the laughs, built around shockingly offensive material, aren't nearly as consistent as in his previous efforts. Maybe that's because what powers them is more an attempt to shock and amuse than to illuminate.

Philosophically speaking, "Brüno" stumbles along drunkenly, lacking the tight, narrow focus of its predecessor. Perhaps it doesn't work as well this time because Cohen hoists himself once too often on his own petard, feeding off of the very celebrity he exposes as shallow and vacuous.

"Brüno" has the same bark as "Borat" but sadly, not the same bite.

BRUNO

Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten
Director: Larry Charles
Theaters: Hollywood, Tinseltown, Carmike, Chapel Hills, Cinemark
Rating: R (for pervasive strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity and language)
Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes

GRADE: B-