'Brüno'

But as so often happens, excess brings a fall from grace, and the rest of the film is spent as Bruno tries to resurrect his career. That is, of course, if you buy into the idea that simply being famous is a career, which the ubiquitousness of the Kardashians, the Bachelorettes, the Housewives and the Hills would most definitely attest to. Sigh.

If "Bruno" is to be believed, what a heart of darkness the pursuit of fame has become. This is apocalypse now. Fortunately for Bruno, camouflage is still a viable fashion option, so it's a jungle he can thrive in.

Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer and Jeff Schaffer are responsible for the stun gun of a script that really starts as Bruno wonders how he might become as famous as that other Austrian offspring, Hitler, just in case they haven't shocked you into submission with the earlier bacchanal.

To reach this new low, Bruno stumbles through the anorexia of Milan's fashion week, adopts a black African orphan he names O.J., creates a talk show with Mexican gardeners as benches for B-list celebrities, meets with the head honcho of a terrorist cell that specializes in suicide bombings, does a casting session with stage parents who are almost as scary and, in a final bid at stardom, undertakes a gay-to-straight makeover that takes him into "Deliverance" country where tempers are short and guns are loaded.

Pushing the hot buttons of racism, sexism, egoism, fill-in-the-blank-ism has always been Baron Cohen's specialty. Easy targets picked for maximum impact -- it doesn't take Jon Stewart to know that beer-soaked cage-fighting fans will throw chairs if the combatants start kissing. Yet when the target is an actual terrorist with armed bodyguards, you have to wonder whether it's really worth the risk for Baron Cohen to get that laugh.

The actor, an awkwardly tall British comic who always seems shy as himself, is fearless when he strips down as someone else. As Bruno, he's at his most naked: a guy who can comfortably order TV porn in his hotel room by clenching a remote control in his lower cheeks; or can turn his penis into a full-frontal swinging trapeze act of sorts, a multifaceted member that can also sing out the word "Bruno" on cue. So clearly we're talking about someone with, um, talent.