Meet Br’uuml;no, gay television host of Austrian fashion show ‘Funkyzeit mit Br’uuml;no.’ He decides what is ‘in’ and ‘out’ in the fashion world.
But after wearing a ‘designer’ Velcro suit to a Milan fashion show and falling onto the catwalk, Br’uuml;no is blacklisted. Br’uuml;no the film follows around his adventures as he travels across America and the world, attempting to become famous.
Br’uuml;no, while funny and containing many hilarious and memorable quotes, is simply too much for most viewers. If the first 10 minutes are any indication, viewers should prepare themselves for insane amounts of sex and nudity.
From this point on, most audience members will be forced to watch the rest of the movie with their faces in their hands or else to stop watching altogether. Borat may have been ‘so 2006,’ but it is clearly the better film.
Once blacklisted, Br’uuml;no’s pygmy lover leaves him. Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten), his assistant’s assistant, is the only person who remains at his side. They travel to the U.S. to start over and make Br’uuml;no a celebrity – ‘the most famous Austrian since Hitler.’
Br’uuml;no attempts to reach this elusive celebrity status through a variety of tried and true methods. From talk shows to sex tapes to kidnapping, Br’uuml;no tries them all.
His first attempt at a real celebrity talk show fails, and he is desperate to star in his own TV show. He creates a fake talk show and presents it to a studio test group.
They are appalled, as is the audience. An unfortunately unforgettable scene in the talk show consists of Br’uuml;no’s penis flopping around on screen for several seconds – what seems like an eternity in the cinema.
This isn’t the first time, or the last, that audiences will see too much of Br’uuml;no. In fact, there is so much graphic sex and nudity in this film that the Motion Picture Association of America originally gave it a NC-17 rating. But, with the help of little black boxes to block out some of the action, Br’uuml;no was bumped down to an R rating, something it still hardly manages to deserve.
Br’uuml;no’s later attempts at being a celebrity include trying to make a sex tape with Texas politician Ron Paul and visiting a charity public relations firm to choose a charity to support.
Like Borat, Br’uuml;no does attempt to make fun of certain aspects of American culture, specifically the lengths many will go in order to become celebrities.
Unlike Borat, several scenes in Br’uuml;no feel staged, leaving viewers to wonder how much of the movie was planned. Some scenes, such as Straight Dave’s Man Slammin’ Max Out fight at the end of the movie, are clearly not planned, but others, especially the blonde at the swingers party, seem placed specifically to move the film along.
While it is sometimes clear Sasha Baron Cohen is trying to get a message across, most of it is lost in the crudely excessive amounts of sex and nudity. Br’uuml;no is funny, and it is refreshing to see Cohen sans facial hair but, ultimately, the movie fails to impress viewers with its vulgar and offensive humor.
