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Parents' Guide to

Bruno

By James Rocchi, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 18+

Intentionally shocking comedy even edgier than Borat.

Movie R 2009 83 minutes
Bruno Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 16+

Based on 39 parent reviews

age 16+

Hilarious Comedy, But Not For the Faint of Heart

I decided to write a review on here about this film because pretty much all of the reviews on here are making this film out to sound like it's a full on porno. While there is lots of sexually suggestive stuff in the movie, it's usually blurred out by black boxes and they're all done for laughs. The film's humor is very stereotype based and it's not for the easily offended. The movie is more cringe than funny, for example, Bruno, a gay male, tries to seduce Ron Paul (an extremely conservative & homophobic politician). Is it as good as Borat, absolutely not. Not even close. Is it funny. Yes. Is it porn, no.
age 18+

Ahhh

He scared my 12 year old because he is homosexual 0/-2 perfect film

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (39 ):
Kids say (58 ):

It's hard to have a bad time watching BRUNO -- the comedic daring that Cohen brings to the process is just too intense to ignore. But, at the same time, it's also hard to not compare the film to Borat and find it wanting. What was once fresh now feels recycled, and Bruno has a much less coherent story than Borat's coast-to-coast journey.

Director Larry Charles still has a hand on how to craft this kind of material -- ambush interviews of unsuspecting people, moments where Bruno is pitted against the mob armed with nothing more than the misplaced courage of his idiotic convictions, and gags designed to shock -- but neither he nor Cohen nor their army of writers seem to have thought as much about the shape of the story as they did about individual bits. Episodic, scattershot, and a little unfocused, Bruno is sporadically funny, but it's hard to not think that the howls of controversy it generates will be louder than the audience's laughter.

Movie Details

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