Ripping the proverbial out of America's braindead redneck underclass is a bit like shooting large, slow-moving ducks in a very small barrel. With a howitzer.

They're slow-witted, humourless, and naively well-meaning in a I'll-buy-you-a-Bud-and-you-can-sleep-with-my-sister-in-law kinduva way. That's why we had such fun watching Borat rile them into such flag-waving apoplexy.

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest spoofing provocateur - the flamboyant Austrian gay fashionista Bruno - heads out to familiar trailer trash territory only this time flagging up their homophobia as opposed to anti-semitism.

It's still a scream for all us badge-wearing lefty liberals - the good ol' boy-baiting sequence when Bruno snogs his male assistant in a boxing bear-pit of baying Texan hillbillies is a classic - but there is the feeling of deja vu.

Things start off swimmingly with Bruno - as presenter of the Austrian fashion show Funkyzeit ("Austism is funny") - donning a velcro suit to crash Agatha Ruiz del la Prada's Milan show and spilling onto the catwalk with curtains and clothes stuck fast to his outfit.

It's just what the vacuous empty-headedness of the fashion industry deserves...but all too briefly we're whisked off to LA where the sacked Bruno - "I want to be the most famous Austrian since Hitler" - is searching vaguely - like most teenage Facebook users - for "celebrity."

Ill-advised options include discussing the merits of Hamas versus hummus with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, attending a swingers party as an intrusive observer and swapping a red U2 limited edition iPod for a black African boy...and then appearing with him on Afro-American Springer-style show to announce he's called OJ.

Vulgar and raucous, it's a well-worn rabble-rousing formula that delivers the requisite belly-laughs and occasionally hints at a deeper malaise lurking malevolently in Uncle Sam's psyche.

None more so than the deeply disturbing parade of pageant parents  happy to let their aspring child actor progeny - when being cast by Bruno for a photo-shoot with OJ - "operate antiquated heavy machinery", lose a third of their bodyweight to liposuction and - brace yourselves - dress up as a Nazi officer and...well you really wouldn't want to know.

This is when Bruno scarily scores highest.. not when he tricks  former Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul into a hotel bedroom and drops his trousers. It's not funny...it's actually the entrapment of a bewildered old man.

This is less a clinical expose of American prejudice and more a scatter-gun series of scams: quite often his victims aren't anti-gay or racist, they're just demonstrating a crippling politeness and unwillingness to offend.

After all, no-one - homo or heterosexual - would welcome the wearisome attentions of what it basically a sex pest.

So it's a mixed bag - obvious targets sitting alongside worthy demolition jobs - but it's never less than amusing...and often excruciatingly funny.

Tim Evans