Larry Charles, the countercultural writer whose work includes episodes of the sitcom Seinfeld and the anarchistic hybrid documentaries Borat and Religulous comes out with yet another piece of iconoclasm, this one more crude and offensive than the rest. Bruno is like Borat, the innovative mockumentary Charles made with Cohen earlier in 2006, where people are teased into believing Cohen's outrageous actions are true and that Bruno is a real character. As horrible as it may be to more light-hearted audiences, I find this obnoxiously satirical style to be plain funny and in many ways, intelligent. Here, people are made to believe Cohen as a flamboyantly gay Austrian reporter seeking fame by just acting like his tasteless and immoral self. This works into satirical bullets at both Bruno and homo-phobics. In this film, we obviously see satirical pokes at Bruno, whose caricature is as relevant in contemporary Hollywood as any, but the real punches Cohen and Charles are aiming at are the conservative communities who reject Bruno upon sight. Charles and Cohen, being the usually nihilistic pair they are, creates a world of discomfort for the audience as genuinely awkward situations play out in crude but hilarious manners. This film will shock and offend viewers, but it is all in the name of satire.
Review of Brüno
