Larry Charles, 18 (83min)

Sacha Baron Cohen lays bare a) the prejudices of conservative America and b) his own buttocks in Brüno, his follow-up to the hugely successful Borat. Brüno is a gay Austrian fashion pundit with a taste for tiny hot pants and a rapacious thirst for celebrity (both his own and that of others). In his quest for stardom, he minces around the Middle East, trying to broach a rapprochement based on a shared appreciation of humous; he persuades D-list celebrities to perch on the backs of Mexican labourers he has ordered to act as stand in furniture. He persuades a star-struck parent to agree to their child working with “lit phosphorus and antiquated heavy machinery” just for the opportunity to appear in a photoshoot. He introduces the concept of “anal bleaching” into the collective consciousness and he engages in a series of sex acts that make Borat’s naked wrestling seem vanilla. It’s eye-wateringly offensive and helplessly funny. Both films follow their central characters to America, but while Borat cushioned his uglier traits — the anti-Semitic tendencies, for example — with a wide-eyed innocence, Brüno is calculating, spiteful and shallow. Baron Cohen’s genius lies in that fact that he can make his creation almost entirely unsympathetic and yet, somehow, still keep the audience mostly on side. That said, this is more a collection of sketches than it is a coherent narrative.

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