Bruno

Gay Austrian fashionista Bruno is Sacha Baron Cohen's second outrageous movie character, skewering prejudices and ignorance, but suffering by following Borat.

Bruno goes to Los Angeles to become a celebrity and the first 20 minutes are often puerile and penile as Cohen ups the ante on Borat to be more shockingly crude and offensive:

Bruno having inventive sex with his partner, having anal cleansing or miming fellatio when seeing a psychic.
The movie later rediscovers some of Borat's satirical success: Bruno trying to broker Middle-East peace but confusing Hamas with hummus, exposing what wannabe child-star parents will agree to, adopting an African orphan and upsetting an African-American TV audience, trying to go straight by seeing ``gay converters'', going hunting and attending a swingers' party, plus angering a macho crowd at a cage fight with gay abandon.

After only 75 minutes, Bono, Sting, Elton John and Snoop Dog suddenly join Bruno for a closing song, as if the movie, which too often felt recycled in its story arc and lampooning, has run out of ideas.

• Reviewed by David Manning. DVDs for review supplied by United Video, Nelson.

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