Brüno isn’t a comment on the fashion industry as one would think of a vehicle for Sacha Baron Cohen’s self-obsessed, flamingly homosexual Austrian fashion reporter, Brüno. Rather, the film is a cringe-inducing and hysterical statement on fame and America. Can’t the Europeans make sweeping statements about their own countries so we don’t look like such barbarians all the time? Anyway, the cinema verite comedy traces Brüno’s trek across the planet in an effort to get back in the limelight after his TV show is cancelled. Along the way, he adopts a black baby, goes camping with rednecks, hangs with LaToya Jackson, and gets pelted by debris whilst French-kissing another man in a wrestling cage in front of a frenzied mob who expected a wrestling match.

After Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the audience knows what to expect. There is plenty of full frontal nudity and even a talking urethra. The film is funny, but what it reveals of American culture isn’t anything we didn’t know, that we live in a homophobic society. The filmmakers also push the theme of “gay sex is gross,” with such props as hamsters and a bicycle-powered dildo.

Brüno opens this Friday, July 10

KEYWORDS: bruno, comedy, film, Movies, Sacha Baron Cohen