It takes huge kugeln to make a movie like Bruno, as an actor and creator after following the success of Borat. Bruno is really Borat part zwei – more of the same social and cultural commentary, hidden in the seemingly naïve exploration of America and, this time out, a few hot spots around the globe. The film is at its best when it’s remarking on relationships as volatile as the one between Israelis and Palestinians, and when Bruno explores the deep rooted beliefs of America’s South. But it fails in its attempt to create a story because it doesn’t really need one. And therefore at times the gimmicks and shock attack on little America, while funny and periodically randomly fresh, feels heavy-handed and set-up more so than Borat.

Bruno (Sasha Baron Cohen, creator of HBO’s Ali G and Borat) seeks out fame and fortune from a world audience. He makes most of his attempts in America, specifically Hollywood before setting out to Africa and the Middle East and back to the States again for a trip through Alabama. How to become famous? That in itself is a quest millions strive for daily not fully understanding celebrity is created from and spurred on by sales and advertising. Regardless of how he goes about it, like Borat Bruno becomes a satirical sounding board for exposing some of the ignorance the world has, this time toward homosexuality, and celebrity. Though that ignorance doesn’t even have a chance with Cohen’s in your face exuberance.

The median age at my midnight showing was 21. Most of them in Abercrombie, Navy and American Eagle; baseball caps and flip flops, bright orange, yellow, and red summer t-shirts that had some fictitious retailer-created bar, motel, or bait shop logo across the front. The place was packed and I was the oldest one there (I felt a little out of place in my khaki pants and artificial white guayabera shirt from The Gap, as I throw in a little fashion talk here to emulate the earlier tone of the film). This crowd, having their high school reunions in the aisles and moving around after hours on a Thursday night like they didn’t have a care in the world of tomorrow’s work day, leisurely strolled in and found seats and conversed over the trailers. I start to get a sense of the kind of audience Bruno would receive.

So I was pleasantly surprised to hear the younger generation express audible reprehension toward some of the stupidest people you’ll ever see caught on film and video. People like showbiz parents who will make their kids do anything to get on film or in photos, such as be nailed to a cross, or dressed as a Nazi, or made to lose 10 pounds in seven days and if not then give their kids up to liposuction if that will get them the part. My youthful summer surroundings almost booed these folks. As well as they should have. And an almost collected wince from the crowd at the guy in Alabama who converted gay men into straight men, making something as difficult as changing your race sound as easy as changing your clothes.

But come on, these folks weren’t here for that. They were here for the other stuff, the Borat stuff, the shock, the set-ups, the making-fun-of, the exposing…and I do mean exposing. What I heard most often from this crowd were jaws dropping. Cohen doesn’t spare the slightest sexual joke or goof on sexual preference around people so straight they would kill you for blinking your same gender eyes at them. The proximity of guys and the space between them and Bruno in one camping scene is hilarious, and the duration director Larry Charles and Cohen allow the camera to roll on Bruno and his new-found hunting buddies is remarkably funny. Probably the funniest bit in a film like this since Woody Allen joined the rebel army in the film Bananas. Which could be a problem. The satirical, social commentary parts of this film, entertaining and enlightening as they are to watch, feel way too familiar. More like Michael Moore films than like Borat. But funny nonetheless. And, too, I thought Cohen and his writing team were creating scenes with real people in contrived scenes that were no different from the fictitiously written gags in scenes from other movies, like those early Woody Allen or Steve Martin films, or more specifically Mike Myers films.

But that’s only after the shock of Bruno’s junk in your face. Dancing junk that sang out “Bru-no” like a misfit Muppet gone porno. Can’t believe he just did that? Well, no. That’s his shtick, and he’s sticking to it. For now. How far can he go with it is anyone’s guess though Bruno’s shock appeal, the popularity of Borat and his HBO show Ali G gives him the number one spot this weekend with $30.4 million.

And the film form of Bruno is very creative, using every music video and reality show method we’re familiar with today to get the point across. As well as contextual stories we’re bombarded with from the media such as the Jolie and Madonna adoption of African children, or the TV Springer-like talk and interview shows that use the angered studio audiences as part of their cast.

I never thought Borat would be funny on video, without an audience, but it was shockingly good. Didn’t need the help of a crowd. Bruno is no different. But where Borat succeeded in tying up loose ends by the film’s finale, Bruno’s climax fizzles out. Which kind of leaves you thinking that Bruno is all talk and junk but no lasting substance. Regardless of how good a “movie” Bruno is, it shows that at its core the film is successful in exposing through satire a portion of American ideology that we may not all be familiar with. And in that sense it educates. It makes us more aware. There’s something sympathetic and pitiful too in a gay character who thinks he should go straight to become famous, “because all of the famous people are straight,” as he puts it.

Like we know some of this is acted out. That some of these people are actors. Whether that’s true or not is not important. It’s how credible you feel it is. I say it loses credibility at times unlike Borat possibly because the character of Bruno seems so over characterized. That there are more people out there like Borat that have it all wrong more so than people like Bruno.

Rated R for sexual content, nudity, language, and making film history as possibly the first commercially released film with a randomly placed dancing penis.

Directed by Larry Charles (Borat, Religulous, Curb Your Enthusiasm); written by Sasha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines and Dan Mazer (Borat, Da Ali G Show), and Jeff Schaffer (The Cat in the Hat, Seinfeld); Produced by Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents), Monica Levinson (Zoolander), among others, with Jonah Hill as Associate Producer.