If there's one thing Sacha Baron Cohen does really well, it's create a character so involved, complex, and immersive that no one seems to know he's acting. Ali G and Borat are perhaps the Superman and Batman, which makes Bruno the Wonder Woman of his "big three" characters.
Bruno would like it that way. He's probably got the wonder-corset in his closet.
Cohen's mock-docs are as polarizing as Michael Bay movies - you love them or you revile them. I've been a fan since I discovered Da Ali G Show on HBO late one night, though Bruno was never really one of my favorites. The character's very esoteric, pushing lines in a way that Borat only approached; Borat never really interviewed the naive Middle Easterners he lampooned, as Bruno does with the bigwigs of the fashion industry. What's spectacular about these films isn't just the situations Cohen gets himself into and how quick on his feet he is in reacting to them, but we love seeing the reactions of people he encounters. There's plenty of this in the trailer, with Ron Paul, a (mostly) pixellated hookup, and angry audience members who are less than amused by Bruno's antics.
I like how this trailer does a similar thing to what Jackie Brown's trailers did - feature praise for the previous film (Borat, Pulp Fiction) while turning the self-applause on its head by giving us something different than what we might expect. What's for dang sure is that this one looks just as funny as Borat, redeeming in some ways the character of Bruno for me.
And I love the casual nature with which Bruno replies, "Zat is such a Samantha thing to say."
Bruno ist bin in theaters July 10.
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