As I’ve noted on prior occasions, the initial audience for a film sequel or star-driven movie is typically based on people’s opinions of its immediate predecessor. Thus the impressive amount of goodwill Sacha Baron Cohen generated among movie audiences with his amusing hit film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan brought a strong opening weekend for his latest, Brüno.
The film snapped up an impressive $30.6 million among North American audiences during its first three days, finishing first, $3 million ahead of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Since then, however, its numbers have fallen precipitously and consistently. On Monday and Tuesday Brüno took in less than half of what Ice Age 3 brought in. On Wednesday it continued its decline as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince destroyed all competition, while Brüno brought in much less than Ice Age 3 even though the latter has been in theaters much longer.
The declining fortunes for Brüno may be a result of reports from audiences who saw the film during its opening weekend. It is astonishingly awful.
Whereas Borat had an amusing central character who was somewhat likable because of the presence of Cohen’s charm behind the character’s ignorance and prejudices, and because we could excuse his transgressions as a result of being brought up in a horrible place, Brüno suffers from the constant presence of a relentlessly self-absorbed, shallow jackass who has no excuses for being so, unless the filmmakers mean to suggest that contemporary Europen culture is overly hedonistic and nihilistic, which appears to be far from their intent.
That Brüno is surrounded by equally unrefined and vulgar people does not increase his appeal, and it ensures that audiences will have almost no characters to relate to.
Thus the sense of elitism that Borat conveyed is increased manifold in Brüno, such that it overwhelms any other impression the film might present.
For those who don’t know the film’s concept, it’s about a nineteen-year-old German homosexual male who moves to the United States to become famous. Somehow we stupid Americans fail to appreciate his greatness.
A scene in which Brüno tries to seduce Congressman Ron Paul exemplifies this übersmug attitude and is an absolute flop, like the film as a whole. Paul simply reacts as a normal, polite person would, which is not the slightest bit interesting. Thus the filmmakers fail in their obvious attempt to characterize the Republican Congressman as a hypocrite or unsophisticated. One feels nothing but sympathy for Paul at seeing him trapped with the wretched ass Brüno.
Add to all of that an even thinner plotline than that of Borat, and the result is an astonishingly stupid and boring film.
As with Borat, some critics are trying to characterize Brüno as praiseworthy by claiming that it makes satirical points about the value of tolerance. Poppycock. That was untrue of Borat, and it’s untrue of Brüno.
Yes, Cohen and director Larry Charles do put together a gallery of characters of enormous selfishness and hedonism, but they do nothing with the material. The only point they seem to be able to make is that there are a great many stupid and unsophisticated people in the world. We knew that upon entering the theater, however, so there’s no point in making a movie to tell us that.
Larry Charles undoubtedly had a particular purpose in mind in making this film, as the director of Religulous clearly hates Christians and thinks the great majority quite dangerous. Thus Brüno includes some jabs at American fundamentalists, but they don’t strike home because the characters are so inane that one cannot see them as being stupid because they are Christian or Christian because they’re stupid. They’re just stupid, exactly like the film’s flamoyantly non-Christian protagonist, Brüno.
Finally, those critics who are praising Bruno for advocating tolerance for homosexuality must be quite insane. I am sure that I have never seen a film that made homosexuality look more unnatural and repulsive than Brüno does. If that is a call for tolerance, it is a stupendously inept one.
That brings us back to the conclusion that Cohen’s main purpose (unlike Charles’s) in making Brüno was to enable people to laugh and have a good time. In that, alas, Brüno is a stupendous failure.
–S. T. Karnick
So true, Jim. He has been a darling much more of the elitist media than of the public, though Borat definitely connected with a decent-sized audience.
As it happens, the current issue of Entertainment Weekly included an item acknowledging that the box office for Bruno had fallen precipitously after the first weekend. (Our Bruno article scooped them and the rest of the media on that one.)
The interesting thing now will be to see whether the press turn against Cohen, now that the stink of failure is on him. Unless he presses further on the elitist, anti-bourgeois agenda he has staked out, they will have no use for him.
Apparently, Sam, you’re not the only one sick of Bruno. Word is that Cohen is sick of Bruno, too — and is contemplating killing off the character.
Good riddance. Forget the phony, contrived situations that Cohen meant to shock audiences with Bruno. I’m genuinely shocked you plopped down 10 bucks to see it and review it.
As part of either the paid promotion of the film, or an attempt to jump on the bandwagon, I was surfing the TV and saw a Bio Channel biography on Sasha Baron Cohen about a week before the premiere. Yeah. I don’t know why he warrants a full hour of examination either. Yet, the bio was fawning to the extreme, comparing Cohen to Peter Sellers — lauding him as Western Culture’s great comic genius and box office smash.
A little exaggeration, I’d guess, since even with all the hype, MSM love and word of mouth, Borat barely topped $100 million worldwide. Adam Sandler sprinkles that coin on his breakfast cereal. Same with Ben Stiller. Yet Bio Channel hailed Cohen as the next cinematic comic genius, and predicted unending blockbusters in his future. It’s quite embarrassing in retrospect.
I don’t care enough about Cohen to be offended that he’s hyped like the modern-day Andy Kaufmann. I merely laugh at the elite media’s attempt to gloss over his unfunniness as yet another reason to take a shot at the “uncultured” types that populate Middle America. No matter how badly this movie bombs, it will never be blamed on Cohen’s lack of talent or vision — but on the “ignorant” audience.