Is Brüno Causing as Much Trouble as Borat?

Sacha Baron Cohen is back in theaters this week, two and a half years after hitting it huge with Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (and one and a half years after Johnny Depp slit his throat in Sweeney Todd).

Borat got zillions of dollars, but it also had to deal with something like twelve different lawsuits (all of which were eventually dismissed, to my knowledge) and debates over (a) is this actually funny, (b) is it staged, (c) is it actually baiting Anti-Semitism, and (d) did we really need to see the nude wrestling scene?

Taking those things into consideration, the question becomes: how much will Brüno have to deal with? Let's take score:

Lawsuits? It's already dealing with one that sounds frivolous.

Social issues? There are questions of whether the movie mocks homophobia or revels in it.

Staging? Despite insistences that most events were legit, at least one reviewer is skeptical.

Nudity? Yep, there's a man-on-man sex show and a bedroom scene involving a champagne bottle.

I guess this means the only thing left is the box office, right? We'll find that part out at the end of this weekend...

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