Well, I’ve been dreading this moment for months, but it seems like it’s finally come to pass: After months of speculative stories and artful equivocation, Variety reports that Sacha Baron Cohen’s next project is indeed a feature-length adventure starring Bruno (pictured), the gay Austrian fashion reporter he played on Da Ali G Show. And here I was, hoping all those earlier rumors were just brilliant misdirection from his real next movie.
Don’t get me wrong, I generally worship the comedic ground Baron Cohen walks on. Borat is probably one of my top 10 favorite films in any genre, and many are the hours I’ve spent watching and re-watching Ali G on HBO On Demand. I even remember some of the Bruno skits from that show fondly, like the time he goaded an unsuspecting guest into saying Burt Reynolds deserved to be deported to a Nazi death camp. But overall, Bruno was always the weakest, most shallow part of the Ali G trinity. His most uproariously inappropriate lines were nothing that Borat or Ali couldn’t do better; at the end of the day, Bruno felt suspiciously like a lazy, homophobic stereotype with none of the subversive nuance that Baron Cohen has brought to his other roles. Besides, how many people are even left in the U.S. who’d still fall for Baron Cohen’s in-character ambush shtick at this point? As PopWatch’s Gary Susman points out, "If that leaves us with a traditional, scripted movie built around this one-joke character, who’s gonna line up to see that?"
There is one ray of hope: Variety also mentions that after Bruno, Baron Cohen’s going on to shoot something called Dinner for Schmucks. I’ve never seen the French movie that it’s based on, but I’m pretty much ready to show up on opening night based on that fantastic title alone. And Variety’spromise that "Cohen will play a character blessed with suchextraordinaryschmuckiness that he can destroy the personal life of anyone with whomhe comes in contact" just might be enough to entirely restore my faithin SBC. (By the way, "schmuckiness" is a word that ought to appear inprint a lot more often.)
Any of you P-Dubs with me in anticipating Schmucks and/or fretting over the inevitable lameness of Bruno — or am I all wrong on this one?
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Although Bruno sounds kinda lame/offensive, I have no doubt Cohen will pull it off brilliantly.
Don’t like him as much, but I’m sure enough people will see this movie. Depending on when it comes out, probably not NEARLY as many as Borat, simply because at the time it came out, people were getting sick of Bush…
Whoa, let’s not jump the gun: you can call Borat a lot of things, but “nuanced” is not one of them.
I’d bet on Cohen doing a very funny and well written Bruno movie.
I, for one, am excited to see where SBC goes with it. But I am way more psyched about Dinner for Schmucks. Diner des Cons (the original French movie) is one of my favorites and I think he’ll be perfect!
also to the claim Bruno is lazy, homophobic, and a stereotype….doesn’t that describe Borat?
Are you serious? Bruno is one of my all time favorite sketch characters and by *FAR* my favorite SBC character. Hmmm…I think Michael Slezak should have written his opinion on this newspiece instead!
The Bruno film will go one of two ways:
1) It’ll follow the mostly unscripted line of Borat, which will be funny but hard to achieve because of Cohen’s fame.
2) It’ll follow the scripted line of the Ali G movie, which was frankly awful and a waste of a genius chatacter.
Either way I think it’ll suck.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is “P-Dubs”? I keep seeing it on this blog.
Anonymous, “P-dubs” means “Popwatchers.” It annoys me too. I also can’t stand “after the jump” because it sounds like something they would say on Entertainment Tonight (and doesn’t really make sense anyway).
I thought P-Dubs was Diddy. No lies.
I’m sick of gay-themed movies…but it shows that anybody with a “name” can sell any idea to Hollywood.
I couldn’t think of anyone better to remake Diner des Cons in English. That is one funny movie. SBC will be great.
Give Cohen a chance here. If he assembles the same team that put together BORAT and DA ALI G SHOW, then chances are good BRUNO will be a laugh riot. To which I say: WAWAWEEWA!
I am proud of that curly headed guy that used his brain for original material. I am getting ready to embrace a whole new set of dreams.
A lame scripted movie based on an Ali G character was already made and it was called “ali g in da house”. It was pure garbage. I loved the Ali G Show, and think it’s still funny when he does the interview in character (in the UK, he does them with people who know that Ali G isn’t real and they’re still funny).
But agreed with Simon that Bruno’s a lazy homophobic stereotype who shouldn’t have lasted more than a skit or two.
Schmucks, on the other hand, sounds really funny. Sacha’s been making lots about being jewish for some time, so lets see him do some Jewish humor already.
Bruno was kinda hot, which means SBC needs to lose the 100 lbs he’s gained in the past year if he’s going to play that character again.
Oh my god “Le Diner des Cons” is one of the funniest movies I have EVER seen…so good in French; I hope it translates to English.
I agree with the writer of this post that the Bruno character is not funny and a walking sterotype of gay men. I rented the Ali G show becasue i like the Borat movie but the only stuff i liked was borat. I returned the one disc to netflix and just youtubed the borat sketeches. Most everyone know whe Sacha baron Cohen is and no one would be fooled by his Bruno character.