There's been so much pre-release scrutiny of Sacha Baron Cohen's "Brüno" that the central question we generally ask about a comedy -- is it funny? -- has been almost completely obscured. Maybe it's beside the point anyway: Cohen has positioned himself as a satirist, a brave, punkish prankster who uses his considerable gifts to reveal and puncture prejudices like homophobia and anti-Semitism. But not every Cohen gag is sharpened meticulously for maximum satiric value. In "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation," Cohen poses as a naif from Kazakhstan to gain access to, and make fools of, targets that many of us left-leaning comedy lovers are happy to see fall, like Bob Barr and Alan Keyes, or the old guy at the Virginia rodeo who's all too willing to vent his beliefs that homosexuals should be run out of town or exterminated. But elsewhere in "Borat," Cohen's methods and aims are more scattershot, and his shtick is more stock: Setting out to "prove" how dumb Midwesterners are doesn't qualify as great satire. It's really just superiority.
See salon.com for full review
