A 20-minute promo of “Bruno,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest prank-comedy, screened at the SXSW Fantastic Fest over the weekend.
The full version is slated to be released on July 10.
Looks like at least one of the “cage fights” in Texarkana and Fort Smith we told you about last summer made the cut.
Vulture rounds up the mostly positive critical response.
SPOILER ALERT: MTV’s Movies Blog offers a play-by-play.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship face-off: At this point in the film, Cohen’s once ostentatiously homosexual reporter has turned militaristically heterosexual and has created a UFC-like show called “Dave’s MAX Out,” giving us our first peek at Straight Dave, the newly invented Brüno. Mustachioed, hirsute and decked out in camouflage gear and an outback hat, Straight Dave parades around the ring to AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” while male spectators cheer him on. This is the gay-loathing party to end all gay-loathing parties. Of course, Straight Dave’s uüber-machismo does a 180 right into homoerotic overtones, but this goes over every audience member’s head as SD rips female stagehands’ clothing to reveal skimpy bikinis.
Then the footage takes a spectacular turn for the worse (better). Think of the scene in “Borat” in which Cohen sings the National Anthem at a Virginia rodeo to an audience that is with him initially and calling for his blood by the end. Brüno is suddenly called out during his show as a “f—-t,” and an appalled Straight Dave challenges the person who yelled that to step into the ring and fight him. We’re not really meant to know who his challenger is, but clearly, it’s his ex-boyfriend. They violently fight, pummeling each other bloody, but eventually the former couple, as you can probably guess, patches things up, passionately making out and groping each other to the sounds of Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” It is a sensational moment in cinema not to be forgotten soon. Of course, the outraged audience freaks out, and one glorious slow-motion shot captures an overzealous red-faced fan crying.
The footage ended with Cohen addressing the audience one last time, asking if we liked what we’d seen. If so, “buy a f—ing ticket.”