Sacha Baron Cohen's 'Brüno' is familiar genius comedy

Outrageous, unnerving, brave, topical, revealing, appalling and consistently hilarious, "Brüno" manages to be both cutting-edge cultural commentary and post-modern comic genius.

But at the same time, Brüno is no Borat. And that's at least partly because Brüno is too much Borat.

The explosive approach of "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" introduced Sacha Baron Cohen to the world at large as a comic revolutionary, a daredevil willing to walk into the most awkward (and potentially dangerous) real-life scenarios in character to see what truth-in-laughter chaos he could promote.

Playing a clueless, sexist, racist foreign journalist on tour in America, Cohen tickled the American underbelly mercilessly. The sheer novelty of his act was thrilling.

Now he's back with a new character, Brüno, an unemployed gay TV fashion host from Austria obsessed with becoming a celebrity in America, and the results are a bit too similar to be equally brilliant.

The results are brilliant, understand. Just not quite as brilliant.

Also weighing the proceedings down just a bit is the somewhat one-dimensional feel of the Brüno character: He's gay, gay, gay, gay, gay.

Beneath the Borat character there was a Chaplinesque common man-Little Tramp thing going on. Beneath Brüno, there's pretty much another gay joke. And another one. And another one.

Which works since, in case you haven't heard, America is filled with homophobes. Cohen seems to have had no trouble finding all sorts of people -- hunters, preachers, fight fans, politicians, swingers -- willing to slur homosexuals, although he does spend an inordinate amount of time in Alabama.

Actually, in contrast to "Borat," "Brüno" is something of a globe-trotting affair. The fashion reporter starts out in Milan, where he wears a Velcro suit to a high-gloss runway show and commences to cause (quite real) pandemonium. As a result, he loses his job and his credentials in the fashion world.

So off he flies to Los Angeles to become a celebrity. He tries getting a TV show there interviewing other celebrities -- Paula Abdul actually sits on a Mexican worker who functions as a chair for her interview -- and shoots a test show for CBS.

That doesn't work out, so Brüno flies to the Middle East to try and broker peace, figuring that will earn him Bono-like fame. Failing there, he stops in Africa on the way back to pick up a baby since that worked for Madonna and Angelina Jolie.

Ultimately though, he realizes that the biggest male celebrities -- Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kevin Spacey -- have one thing in common: They're heterosexual. So Brüno decides to renounce his gayness.

Yeah, that'll work.

Be aware, interspersed throughout all this is much near-X-rated footage and commentary.

Look, if such stuff bothers you, you probably won't like this movie. And if you're overly sensitive about gay issues one way or the other you probably won't like this movie.

Further, if you don't like cringe humor that has you wondering whether to weep for mankind or laugh, you probably won't like this movie.

But if you liked "Borat" you'll probably like "Brüno," even if he's not quite as charming or unexpected. For those in the mind-set, this is still gut-busting, adventurous, plain genius, comic, cultural commentary. Rare stuff indeed.

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