I remember pretending to go to sleep some nights and then waiting for my parents to go to bed. After the coast was clear I would sneak downstairs and watch HBO. One of my favorite shows, besides 'Real Sex', was 'Da Ali G Show'. I still try and catch it whenever its on now and it still is classic and timeless.
I had no idea how they were going to pull it off but I saw 'Borat' in its opening weekend and I, along with the rest of the audience, laughed from start to finish. Borat was pretty close to perfect and definitely engaging and re-watchable. It was fresh and it was nice to see a movie that did not have a tired, recycled plot.
It is hard to watch 'Bruno' without making comparisons to Bruno's first carnation on 'Da Ali G Show'. I was expecting something along the lines of Borat. I went into this film with the same hopes and expectations of 'Borat' and honestly the magic just was not there.
The beauty of 'Borat' was in the reactions of the people interviewed. People were intolerant, racist and sexist. 'Borat' was a complete study of American ignorance and a great sociological experiment.
There was ample opportunity for Cohen to capture this feeling again. Homophobia is a big issue today and I was really hoping to see some kind of exploration into the subject.
It was there but not in the way I expected. It felt, to me at least, that Bruno was there to simply make everyone around him uncomfortable. This was funny the first time but it got a little stale. It would have been nice to see more in terms of intolerance.
I also expected more in terms of parodying the shallowness and unpractical nature of the fashion industry. There were plenty of opportunities to take stabs at fashion but this was only done in the beginning.
Without giving anything away there is a lot of shock and a great scene with Harrison Ford- but other than that it just seemed kind of under enthusiastic. I expected a lot more.
