Bruno (2009) Critic Reviews

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

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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

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.Read the full review