RussianPaul

IMDb member since September 2005
    Lifetime Total
    1+
    IMDb Member
    18 years

Reviews

World's Greatest Dad
(2009)

Rather good black comedy, painful soundtrack
This was a great black comedy, very painful to watch at times. Robin Williams hasn't been in too many genuinely good films, especially lately. This may be one of his best. He plays a terrible father and failed writer who probably never set any boundaries with his kid. The son, Kyle, is a dumb, spoiled brat who constantly belittles his father with no consequences and apparently cannot stop masturbating, sometimes to very bizarre pornography. I will not mention where this goes, better to find out for yourself.

It's definitely one of those movies that makes you cringe, usually in a good way. The one thing that really held this movie back was the generic pop soundtrack. Bobcat should've used silence a lot more and/or picked songs that weren't so over the top. Some of the slow motion montages were a bit much as well.

Good film, poorly chosen music, and a good 5 minutes could have been edited IMO, would've made a big difference.

Brüno
(2009)

Underwhelming
I just saw it and I was a bit let down. I am gay, I love Cohen, and was ready to laugh. But the problem was he didn't expose any under-the-surface bigotry like he did in Borat. He overdid his "gayness" to such a violent extreme that he forced reactions out of people, some of whom are probably plenty openminded. You ended feeling sorry for these people.

Especially Ron Paul, who out of all the politicians Cohen could have chosen, deserved it the least. He's no champion of gay rights, but he is certainly not an enemy either and he reacted like any normal person would in that nightmarish situation. There were also some genuine bigots in the film, but Cohen goes to such an extreme to provoke them, by the time it gets to that point, who cares?

There were funny moments, of course, Cohen is a funny man, but this movie lacks the bite Borat had. This was just an exercise in bad taste (which is fine, if that's what you're looking for).

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