Positive Reviews
18%
Negative Reviews
82%
Bruno - Critics
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Critics' Scores & Analysis
Critics' Reviews of Bruno
- 91
The movie is a toxic dart aimed at the spangly new heart of American hypocrisy: our fake-tolerant, fake-charitable, fake-liberated-yet-still madly-closeted fame culture.
Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman
- 88
You'll hoot and holler as it strips down its targets and sticks it to them, hardcore. Baron Cohen is the pure, untamed id of movie comedy.
Reviewed by Peter Travers
- 88
A no-holds-barred comedy permitting several holds I had not dreamed of. The needle on my internal Laugh Meter went haywire, bouncing among hilarity, appreciation, shock, admiration, disgust, disbelief and appalled incredulity.
Reviewed by Roger Ebert
- 88
With Bruno, Baron Cohen essentially turns a carnival mirror on society, and some people simply aren't going to like what they see. This is satire at its most confrontational and incisive.
Reviewed by Jason Buchanan
- 83
Cohen no longer has freshness and novelty on his side, but he’s retained the power to shock, offend, provoke, unsettle, and most importantly, entertain a jaded, desensitized public.
Reviewed by Nathan Rabin
- 80
Funny as it is, Brüno could not be as shockingly uproarious as "Borat." No matter how well retold, a joke necessarily loses explosive force the second time around. But a great gag is a thing of beauty forever--so, too, a comic performance.
Reviewed by J. Hoberman
- 75
Probably more gut-bustingly funny than anything else out there right now.
Reviewed by Lou Lumenick
- 75
It's hard to deny that Brüno succeeds in being both outrageous and outrageously funny, and it's hard to damn a comedy, regardless of its faults, for those qualities.
Reviewed by James Berardinelli
- 75
The real genius, if that is what it is, behind Sacha Baron Cohen's crude, shocking and explosively funny Brüno is the fact that the filmmakers actually found enough gullible human targets.
Reviewed by Connie Ogle
- 75
Brüno offers more shock value for your moviegoing dollar than any other movie this year.
Reviewed by Claudia Puig
- 70
Is Brüno riotous? Yes, more so than "Borat," in which Baron Cohen's targets were ducks in a barrel and largely undeserving of ridicule. He doesn't aim much higher here, but his tricks are more inventive.
Reviewed by David Edelstein
- 70
Packed with filthy jokes, insane sight gags, and body parts used in decidedly uncommon ways, Brüno is hands-down the dirtiest R-rated movie you'll see this year.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Weitzman
- 70
Like a wayward love child of Lenny Bruce and the Three Stooges, Brüno is an idiot savant of penetration -- breaking through borders, boundaries and anything that resembles good taste on his way to whipping up as much cultural anarchy as he can. I would guess Brüno is holding on to an R rating for this sublimely spicy soufflé by the skin of his, well, let's just not say.
Reviewed by Betsy Sharkey
- 67
Crude both in form and content while at the same time capable of evoking explosions of shocked and, often, shamed laughter.
Reviewed by Shawn Levy
- 65
Director Larry Charles has made Bruno a tighter, better-looking film than "Borat," which is not necessarily a good thing on those occasions when you suspect it of scripting rather than just observing.
Reviewed by Bob Mondello
- 60
Undeniably funny, outrageous and boundary-pushing, this further documentation of Sacha Baron Cohen's sheer nerve will draw an abundant share of "Borat" fans.
Reviewed by Todd McCarthy
- 60
A patchy, hit-and-miss comedy with a few outrageous highs and a lot of just-okay padding, Brüno suggests that Sacha Baron Cohen's in-your-face fool routine sadly isn't working any more.
Reviewed by Damon Wise
- 60
The problem with shock comedy is that it works in its purest form only the first time. Where do you go after you've gone too far? No artist can get heads to swivel and stomachs to turn indefinitely.
Reviewed by Richard Corliss
- 50
Brüno is likely to be the funniest thing you'll see on a screen this summer. Which is precisely its problem: it's a thing , not a movie – if, that is, you believe a movie should be more than an accumulation of prankish set-pieces flimsily strung over 80 skimpy minutes.
Reviewed by James Adams
- 50
The humor of Brüno is arguably crueler and more misanthropic than "Borat's."
Reviewed by Dana Stevens
- 50
Parts of it are brilliant; some of it feels tired and overplayed. Cohen has come up with some marvelous satirical motifs; elsewhere, he's just showing how far he'll go to get a laugh.
Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
- 50
There are some solid, outrageous laughs here--most of them involving anal sex--but don't expect a second lightning strike.
Reviewed by J.R. Jones
- 50
There's good bad taste and then there's just plain bad bad, which is what describes most of Brüno.
Reviewed by Peter Rainer
- 50
Brüno is what "Borat’" was too well-done to be: a publicity stunt about publicity stunts.
Reviewed by Wesley Morris
- 50
A crude, cringe-worthy, and intermittently funny affair that triggers the gag reflex. I sincerely can't tell you whether I was choking with laughter or keeping from choking.
Reviewed by Carrie Rickey
- 50
Extraordinarily raunchy, occasionally funny.
Reviewed by Michael Phillips
- 40
Bruno is only intermittently funny and all too often the "ambushes" of celebrities and civilians look staged. The movie is even a tad -- dare we say it? -- tedious.
Reviewed by Kirk Honeycutt
- 40
In spite of Mr. Baron Cohen and Mr. Charles’s high-level skills and keen low-comic instincts, Brüno is a lazy piece of work that panders more than it provokes.
Reviewed by A.O. Scott
- 38
The low points in this movie aren't just catastrophic: they're bewildering.
Reviewed by Michael Sragow
- 30
Seems fatally out of tune, with every staged encounter falling as flat as the protagonist's hot-ironed bob.
Reviewed by Ann Hornaday
- 30
The film may have only the best of intentions, but it tries way too hard and ends up being shallow, superficial, and only sporadically funny.
Reviewed by Marc Savlov
- 30
Forget satire; this guy doesn't want to scorch the earth anymore. He just wants to swing his dick.
Reviewed by Anthony Lane
- 25
The bad outweighs the good and the cringes outnumber the laughs in Brüno, a disappointment from Sacha Baron Cohen, whose "Borat" was one of the funniest movies of the decade.
Reviewed by Mick LaSalle