Borat did something magical, it took my preconceived notion of hospitality and of human compassion and turned it on its ear. Borat at a southern mansion, culturally ignorant, acting poorly and yet for the most part, tolerated, and more than that, at times, excused, and helped. Meeting those black boys on the corner in some anonymous urban area and getting on with them well. If you don't know Andy Kaufman's origin story for Latka, a character similar to Borat, Andy was being mugged, pretended to be a foreigner, and the muggers left him alone. One wouldn't assume that the same kind of spirit would be afforded in this age, but Borat showed that not to be true. Baron Cohen tried to get people to not like him and they refused. It was exceptional and smart, edited to show the best in people while also being outrageously funny. Bruno is the exact opposite, stupid, crass, boorish. It's Sasha Baron Cohen losing all of his humanity and the humanity of others. And he's trying so hard to shock. It's not fun when all your doing is an expose on how far you'll go, whether ill conceived or not. I have to admit that this movie is funny. Sasha is a funny person, but this movie isn't smart and it isn't sending the right message. I wish that Cohen didn't try so hard, I wish that he picked a better opponent than southern fanatics. This movie could have been so much more than stereotypes and a damn near carbon copy plot as his last film. Perhaps Cohen isn't a good enough story teller to make it happen.
