Staring Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian, Pamela Anderson
Directed by Larry Charles, from a screenplay by Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham and Dan Mazer
I can't wait to see "Borat," which has twice as many laughs as all of this year's other movie comedies combined, for a fourth time.
Propelled by Sacha Baron Cohen's genius performance, this proudly offensive mock documentary is a blast of fresh, rude air.
Cohen plays Borat Sagdiyev, a stupid but somehow likable TV personality from Kazakhstan who has some unforgettable encounters with the natives during a tour of the United States - mostly accompanied by Azamat (Ken Davitian), the burly producer of his TV documentary.
Borat, a fixture on "Da Ali G Show," is not only unfamiliar with indoor plumbing and hotels - he mistakes an elevator for his room and takes a dump on the street - but he's unapologetically crude, sexist, homophobic and, probably most controversially, a raging anti-Semite.
The film opens with Borat gleefully introducing his village in Kazakhstan (actually filmed in Hungary), where he boasts his sister is the No. 4 prostitute, a neighbor is a rapist ("naughty, naughty") - and where he provides commentary for "the running of the Jew," an event in which giant papier-mach� puppets are attacked, along with their offspring.
My jaw was hanging open the first time I saw this scene.
It was clear this wasn't going to be another formulaic Hollywood comedy. This is take-no-prisoners, social and political satire in the tradition of Jonathan Swift and Lenny Bruce.
You're going to shift uncomfortably in your seat - even as audiences are laughing so hard that people have tears rolling down their faces.
I'm going to recommend that you stop reading now and rush off to the nearest theater - "Borat" is something you're not going to want to miss unless you're easily offended, or maybe a native of Kazakhstan.
OK, if you insist on a summary, it goes something like this: During a relatively benign stay in New York, Borat encounters "Baywatch" on TV and delivers a graphically expressed obsession with Pamela Anderson.
He and a reluctant Azamat set off on a cross-country odyssey (in an ice cream truck) in which Borat exposes his politically incorrect attitudes to unwary Americans - real people duped by the filmmakers - which are often reciprocated.
Appearing at a rodeo in Virginia with a manager who assures Borat that many Americans want to hang gays, our hero draws cheers for the president's "war of terror" and even for his wish that the chief executive "drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq." It's only when Borat croaks a Kazakh version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" that he's run out of town.
The real shocker comes after Borat and Azamat stumble into a bed-and-breakfast run by an elderly Jewish couple - in the middle of the night, this third-world Laurel and Hardy become convinced their hosts have turned themselves into roaches and try to ward them off with dollar bills.
The topper comes when Borat asks a gun shop owner, "What's the best gun to defend from a Jew?" and the guy whips out a large revolver without a beat.
There are many uproarious scenes, including Borat's rampage through a shop filled with Confederate memorabilia and encounters with feminists, Southern gentry, a driving instructor, a humor coach, drunken frat boys, a Pentecostal revival meeting - and an apparently unsuspecting Pamela Anderson.
I've never heard louder or more sustained howls of laughter than during a sequence in which Borat surprises Azamat performing an intimate act while holding a magazine with pictures of Anderson. The two men wrestle, and a chase ensues through an elevator and into a Realtors' convention - all while they're in the nude.
Baron Cohen, an observant Jew whose committed performance as a gay French race-car driver in "Talladega Nights" was so good it was like he was acting in a different movie than Will Ferrell, inhabits Borat like no actor in a comic role since Peter Sellers. He rates an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, at the very least.
The star is also one of five credited writers on "Borat," fearlessly and breathlessly directed by "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" veteran Larry Charles (not be confused with Larry David). However they did it, this is the finest and most thoughtful comedy released so far this century.
Very nice. I like "Borat" very much. I think it is, as everybody has been saying, the funniest movie in years. And not because it is dumb (although it's very dumb), but because it is smart (and it is very smart). The full title is "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Every single word in that title (including "for" and both "of's") is, in its context, really funny. If you have to ask why, then you probably won't understand why "Borat" is funny, either. But that doesn't seem likely.
Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) is the leading television personality of the glorious but socially backward and underdeveloped nation of Kazakhstan. This is not the actual former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, unless Borat's sister really is the No. 4 prostitute in the country, and has a trophy to prove it. Borat travels to America, which turns out to be a nation almost exactly like Kazakhstan, only much larger, and with different accents, customs and even more inbred village idiots. In America, they are called "frat boys" or "creepy old rednecks in cowboy hats."
That is about all for the plot. Borat encounters many different people and situations -- some of them staged and some improvised, "Candid Camera"-style, with unaware participants, as on Cohen's HBO TV series, "Da Ali G Show."
Since I am determined not to spoil the movie for you by recounting any more of the gags, perhaps I can ruin it -- er, enhance your enjoyment of it by further explaining why it's so funny.
At the very beginning, Borat explains: "Although Kazakhstan a glorious country, it have a problem, too: economic, social and Jew. This why Ministry of Information have decide to send me to U S and A greatest country in a world! to learn a lessons for Kazakhstan." Again, this is something of a test: If you do not understand why it is funny -- especially the phrase "economic, social and Jew" -- then "Borat" you may not like.
Borat's views of "Jews" (it's not clear he's ever met any until he comes to America, and he doesn't recognize them when he does) are like his views of Uzbeks. They are the bad guys because, well, that is what people in his nation believe, and his country has institutions and customs designed to reinforce such useful, identity-defining prejudices against "The Other." The cartoonishness of Borat's naive beliefs (he's an ignorant man, but not malicious) takes the ridiculous stereotypes of "Crash" to even more hilarious extremes, and does a better job of undermining them as fantastical paranoid creations.
The movie is shrewd and discerning about choosing its targets. Borat likes African-Americans because he thinks they're cool (and part of the unspoken joke is that this generalization is just as racist as his fear and loathing of Jews or Uzbeks). He's homophobic, but he can't tell who's gay and who isn't. And because his culture thinks nothing of intimate physical contact between men, he has homosexual experiences without even realizing it. Because he doesn't think of them that way.
The Anti-Defamation League, while acknowledging that Cohen himself is Jewish and the movie is in no way malevolent or anti-Semitic, nevertheless has expressed fears that some insecure souls "may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry." Is it possible that, in glorious nation of America, we still harbor peoples who are more stupid than Borat? Yes, it is -- and "Borat" proves it. But if morons will find reinforcement for their bigotry in "Borat," then they'll find it in "Seinfeld" and "Deal or No Deal" and "Riverdance," too.
I laughed and laughed during a recent screening of Larry Charles and Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat -- subtitled Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan -- but I assumed it would be the kind of laughter that quickly faded. I was wrong; the more I considered Borat, the better and funnier it grew. Sure, it contains enough dumb, Jackass-type humor to keep an army of frat boys in stitches, but it's also a clever satire and unquestionably the best mock documentary since This Is Spinal Tap.
Cohen, who also co-wrote the screenplay, stars as Borat, a television personality in Kazakhstan. Along with his portly, hairy producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian), he ventures to the United States to learn about its culture in the hopes of bringing some positive change to his home country (though he never explains why; to him, Kazakhstan is already the greatest nation on earth). After a short time in New York, he discovers American television and falls in love with Pamela Anderson on "Baywatch." Thus begins a road trip to Los Angeles so that he can propose marriage to his new beloved.
The movie contains the usual road-trip jokes, such as gunning down the road to the tune of Steppenwolf in the most ridiculous vehicle the writers could think of (this time it's an old ice cream truck). And it also comes with the expected lowbrow stuff, embodied in the truly horrifying but screamingly funny sequence in which Borat and Azamat wrestle, naked, over the possession of a "Baywatch" fan magazine.
But where Borat veers into greatness is in its depiction of America's cultural differences, as seen from the outside in. Many will be horrified and enraged by the film's portrayal of anti-Semitism, but these moments are so uniformly outrageous and unreasonable, that anyone who actually is anti-Semitic may think twice. In one sequence, we witness the Kazakhstani "Running of the Jews," in which actors wearing monstrous costumes (complete with horns) chase the locals. In another, Borat and Azamat unexpectedly find themselves checked into a bed and breakfast owned by a nice, old Jewish couple. They become convinced that their lives are in danger; when two cockroaches skitter under the door, our travelers assume that the old couple has used their shape-shifting powers and are preparing to attack.
Borat also approaches a group of black teenagers and asks (like many other Americans) how he can dress and act more like them. Scenes involving a traveling band of drunken frat boys and an extremely conservative church play as if someone has pulled up a rock and revealed a previously unseen squirmy underbelly (in many ways, Borat is more frightening and hits closer to the mark than the recent documentary Jesus Camp).
With his previous incarnation, Ali G, Cohen interviewed unsuspecting rubes ("Candid Camera" style) and ridiculed them through his performance. One gets the impression that Borat is filled with people who do not recognize Cohen and are not in on the joke. This duplicity is not particularly funny in itself, but by adding in the aforementioned layers of cultural confusion, he has hit upon a brilliant new combo.
Thankfully, Cohen manages to keep the jokes flying well into the film's final third, which most modern comedies, including his own previous Ali G Indahouse, fail to do. He has thoughtfully chosen a good director, Larry Charles, whose very odd 2003 film Masked and Anonymous certainly did not follow any boring rules, and whose innovative television work ("Seinfeld," "Mad About You," "The Tick," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Entourage," etc.) continues to inspire.
Unlike many of this year's self-important political documentaries, Borat actually has the power to show the ridiculousness of our current social and political behavior. Can they award the Nobel Prize to a fictional character?
It�s absurdly vulgar, so be warned. But if you want to laugh � in shock - from start to finish, this is the movie that will challenge future comedies as The New Template. See flaccid �School for Scoundrels� then see Sacha Baron Cohen�s pure portrayal of Kazakhstan�s TV host Borat Sagdiyev.
I do not know how Jews are going to feel about �Borat,� but the Kazakhstan government is fighting back.
Before Borat travels to the U.S., he takes us on a tour of his village, proudly showing off his upscale Kazakhstan shack lifestyle.
Which has infuriated Kazakhstan and its president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. Cohen�s film has been denounced by the Kazakh Embassy in Washington and led to the reports that Mr. Nazarbayev intended to complain about the film to President Bush on an official state visit. Kazakhstan has begun a TV and newspaper campaign to show the country in a better light.
Kazakhstan will need Tom Cruise�s PR firm to offset �Borat�s� �Running of the Jews,� the country�s national drink of horse urine, cheese made from Borat�s wife�s breast, state-ranked prostitutes, and the ultra-anti-Jewish sentiment of the country. And, Borat is fiercely homophobic, even though he cannot keep his hands, genitals, and mouth off other men.
Borat leaves his soon-to-be-deceased wife and the village rapist to travel to New York City with his producer, Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian in the star-making buddy role of 2006). Everyone Borat meets in New York City is horrified by him.
But it is the wrestling in the nude with Bagatov that you will never forget. Sure, Robert De Niro �inhibited� his �Raging Bull� character and so did Charlize Theron in �Monster,� but no one has committed himself so completely to a character like Cohen.
Why ruin it for you? Go see for yourself.
Borat sees a �Baywatch� rerun on TV and decides he will marry Pamela Anderson and take her forcibly back to Kazakhstan in a sack. This means he must go to Malibu. After talking Bagatov into his plan to interview real Americans, he buys an ice cream truck and they travel across America. You can see that not much of the road trip was staged.
�Borat� has been cleverly written by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, and Don Mazer. We wait in anticipation: What will happen if Borat sees Pamela�s infamous sex tape?
The Americans Borat meets are real people. Cohen appears to have been roughed up several times by security men and probably had a lot of explaining to do afterwards. Especially when he attacks Anderson at a book signing.
It just goes to show how everyone wants to be in a movie � even when Borat goes to a gun store to buy a gun to protect himself �against Jews.�
How does Cohen get his footage? My husband got a call from a �British TV production team affiliated with the BBC� last year. (Their google credits were vague.) He wisely declined to be interviewed about s�ances but another friend, a parapsychologist, agreed. The production team did not want me at the filming after I went to the pre-interview meeting. I later suggested that my friend have them sign a letter confirming it was not Ali G who was coming over. The day of the filming, my friend faxed them a letter agreement. He should have waited since we are both Sacha Baron Cohen fans. They never turned up.
The outrageous behavior of Borat never lets up. He knows no boundaries. His honesty makes him likeable, as long as he doesn�t come to your house and wants to use the toilet.
The character of Borat is so shocking, and Cohen never abandons the character, that you are not laughing at him or what he says, you are just laughing at his profound ignorance. It is also evident that we are now so conditioned to politeness that it is the fearlessness of Cohen and his director, Larry Charles, which is so liberating. In its crude way, Borat is providing a service, showing how idiotic cultural stereotyping can be.
Someday someone will write a doctoral dissertation on the phenomenon of turning television sitcoms and characters from sketch shows into feature film comedies. Hollywood has turned into a land where there is dearth of originality and where a studio executive will greenlight a movie with the slimmest of premises. So audiences have been subjected to an endless parade of generally awful movies based on old television shows (BEWITCHED, THE HONEYMOONERS) and full-length versions of skits that work intermittently in say, five or ten minute length, but stretched to more than 70 minutes become tiresome (CONHEADS, SUPERSTAR, A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY, etc.)
So now comes BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN, which transports a character created by Sacha Baron Cohen for British television and plunks him down in a mock-documentary. I wish I could say that the result is uproarious and consistently entertaining, but like many of the above mentioned movies, BORAT is fitfully amusing. Baron Cohen and his cohorts (including director Larry Charles, who cut his comic teeth writing sitcoms like SEINFELD, MAD ABOUT YOU and the current HBO hit ENTOURAGE) have set out to create both high and low brow situations that push the envelope of decency and taste. Sometimes, they do succeed. Some situations are hilarious and I found myself laughing along with the movie. Then, there are the jokes that are meant to make you chuckle but also to make you think (e.g., a sequence like the "running of the Jew" in Borat's homeland that is a satire of the annual event in Pamplona mixed with a sight gag). And then there are the scenes that cross a line -- such as when Borat and his plus-sized producer Azamat (Ken Davitian) get into a nude wrestling match. Initially that scene works as a sight gag, but then it is milked to the hilt and goes on for far too long, diminishing the intended results.
Much has been made about how Baron Cohen remained in character all through the shoot and he has publicized the film in guise of Borat as well. Again, though, for my tastes the character is beginning to wear out its welcome and not just because I've read about the movie in magazines, and watched Baron Cohen make appearances on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and the TODAY show. It's that he's basically doing the same jokes -- most of which are in the film -- in these interviews and TV spots. For my tastes, a little of Borat goes a long way -- a VERY long way.
For the one or two who don't know, Borat is supposed to be the most popular man on Kazhakstani television. (Indeed, he may be the ONLY man on Kazhakstani television.) He and his hapless producer Azamat are commissioned to travel to the United States to make a documentary. Opening in his hometown, we meet members of Borat's family and his neighbors. Once in Manhattan, he meets with some unsuspecting people for what turn out to be amusing culture clashes (like meeting with three feminists). One evening while watching television, he stumbles on an episode of BAYWATCH and becomes transfixed with a certain cast members. (No, not David Hasselhoff!) Determined to meet his dream girl, Borat convinces his producer they have to travel to California. After learning how to drive and purchasing a vehicle, they are on their way.
Much of the humor of the film comes from culture clashes. There are amusing bits where Borat slips in something so politically incorrect it is funny. But what's even more jaw-dropping is the reaction of some of the people. (There remains much debate over how much of the film has been staged and how much is "real.") Watch Borat speak to a man at a Virginia rodeo about killing homosexuals or see him try to purchase a gun or enjoy his attendance at a fancy dinner party where toilet humor and a call girl enliven the proceedings. The humor is hit or miss, sometimes striking its target. But after the one-hour mark, I began to tire of the character and his search for his dream girl.
To my mind, BORAT may have worked better on the small screen and in smaller amounts. At only 82 minutes, the movie felt padded out and it began to peter out as well. The climactic encounter with that blonde actress IS somewhat amusing, but it doesn't really provide the capper to the film that it means to be.
I know that BORAT is the kind of movie that is critic-proof. Whatever anyone says about it, audiences will flock to it, and I'm sure that it will make a gazillion dollars at the box office. It's sort of interesting to note, though, that the Baron Cohen's initial foray into film in one of his television personae, ALI G INDAHOUSE was released direct to DVD here in America despite airings of a TV show on HBO. Now, there are rumblings that he will take a third character -- the flamboyantly gay fashionista Bruno -- to the big screen. Who knows? Maybe the third time will be the charm.
"Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" (though you'll never hear it called anything but "Borat") is a television comedy sketch expanded to feature-film length � and, as we know, stretched-out television comedy sketches never work as movies, right? Wrong.
The cheerfully tasteless "Borat" � created by and starring Sacha Baron Cohen (of "Ali G." fame), with a team of co-writers, and directed by Larry Charles � is often screamingly funny and almost never dull, and that's more than I can say for just about every comedy to grace screens this year.
True, "Borat" does occasionally wander near "Jackass" territory: A long central sequence of two nude males (one very overweight) wrestling is only funny because, well, they're naked, and various bits keep dangling where they shouldn't. And yes, some of the humor is intentionally offensive, targeting every group imaginable, but it's so absurdly over-the-top it seems impossible to take seriously.
The main target, of course, is Borat himself. Played by Cohen in a tired gray '80s suit, Borat Sagdiyev is a top journalist in Kazakhstan who travels to the U.S., with his portly camera operator Azamat (Ken Davitian, a fine sport) in tow, so that his backward country can learn about America. (The closing credits note, just in case anyone's humor-impaired, "Nothing in this film is intended to convey the actual beliefs, practices or behavior of anyone associated with Kazakhstan.") After the grim poverty of his home village, he's dazzled by the wealth of New York, so much so that he tries to kiss people on the subway. And ... well, I won't tell you what he does in front of Victoria's Secret.
In his modest hotel room (to him, it's a palace; he initially thought the elevator was his room), he watches television and is transfixed by a vision: Pamela Anderson, in what he calls, in his bizarrely fractured English, "her red water panties." Determined to find her and make her his wife, Borat and his sidekick acquire an ice-cream truck and a bear (don't ask) and embark on a bizarre road trip across the U.S.
Along the way, they meet up with various Americans � bed and breakfast owners, fraternity brothers, rodeo dudes, Pentecostals � all appearing as themselves and apparently unaware that they're reacting to a fictional character. (All, apparently, signed contracts without reading them too carefully, and some come off � not to put too fine a point on it � like idiots on-screen. Quite possibly, "Borat" lawsuits will soon be in the news.)
But the reason "Borat" works isn't because of the stunt, or the naked wrestling, or even the lime-green thong-swimsuit-from-hell sported by Cohen in an early scene. (My retinas are still recovering.) It works because, at heart, it's a character comedy, and Cohen's carefully honed detail work gives it texture.
Borat stands stiffly in his weary suit as if he's proud of it, his arms straight by his sides and his ever-present grin beaming tirelessly. He's always optimistic, though occasionally shocked at what he sees. Holding a Barbie at a garage sale (held by, he presumes, gypsies), he gasps in horror. "Who is this lady you have shrunk?" he demands. Boorishly charming, he's an innocent abroad.
"Borat" steals liberally from Andy Kaufman and Tom Green to create something so sophomoric that it's a sad state of our own nation that people still find sexist and racist humor so funny.
Kazakhstan journalist Borat Sagdiyev (Sasha Baron Cohen) has been sent to New York on assignment by his TV station, but when he falls in love with Pamela Anderson after seeing her on "Baywatch," he and his producer Azamat (Ken Davitian) travel across country in an ice cream truck meeting all sorts of real Americans on the way.
You may have already heard that "Borat" is the "funniest movie ever" so it's time for someone to take a more realistic look at this movie from the perspective of someone who's heard all the raves and went in knowing full well what to expect, hoping it would be as funny as people claimed. Granted, having never watched "Da Ali G Show"--I always saw him as that annoying guy in the Madonna video--I never heard of Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat until seeing the movie trailer and hearing about his recent shenanigans in the news, but Borat can be summed up in one sentence as Cohen's "homage" to Eastern Europeans, a clueless foreign idiot who comes from a country where women, the mentally challenged and Jews are treated worse than animals.
Because Borat is so uneducated, he speaks his mind with all sorts of outrageous racial and misogynistic utterances, but "Borat" the movie is basically one joke repeated over the course of a movie, where he goes up to unsuspecting strangers and does his idiot act in order to get a reaction. It's only somewhat creative in the way that Cohen, director Larry Charles and their staff of writers tie these individual segments into a cohesive story about Borat trying to find his dream girl Pamela Anderson, but the production values are non-existent.
The funniest moments are when "Borat" shines the spotlight on Americans as being as racist and sexist as his character pretends to be. At a Texas rodeo, he sings his own version of the National Anthem after a rant about Bush drinking the blood of Iraqi men, women and children; it's met with cheers. Sure, many people will hail this movie for Cohen's "subversive" genius at shining a mirror on what makes audiences laugh and react, but it's mostly fratboy humor, driven home by a scene where Borat is picked up by a camper where its collegiate riders share their own derogatory thoughts on women. Cohen misses his chance to have some fun with politicians while visiting Washington D.C, as a bit with conservative Congressman Allan Keyes is wasted by Borat talking about how he unwittingly went home with some gay men after a local parade.
Borat's producer Azamat, an even funnier character played by Ken Davitian, has moments where he overshadows Borat--at one point quite literally in a gross scene which turns into a funny moment where they chase each other naked through a crowded hotel and convention hall, a joke taken from the "Jackass" playbook. Other scenes that do elicit laughs include one where people try to teach Borat manners at a dinner party followed by an even funnier bit where Borat is "saved" at an evangelical ceremony.
The point is that the movie's funniest laughs come from people and their reactions, not the material written by Cohen and his crew. Their humor is mean, not funny. Cohen spends the movie gladly accepting the kindness of strangers who accept him, despite his outlandish appearance and demeanor, then he takes advantage of their good graces by turning them into laughing stocks for his audience. Cohen sometimes goes too far to get those laughs, like when he starts breaking things in a Mom 'n' Pop shop "by accident." Tom Green has been doing this same schtick for years and been attacked by critics for it. The only difference is that Borat uses a funny foreign accent, which apparently makes it "more intelligent." Certainly Andy Kaufman had a stellar career doing a similar character without resorting to racial epithets, and Eugene Hutz of New York band Gogol Bordello, an actual Eastern European, plays a similar cartoon character onstage--one slightly modified for Liev Schreiber's "Everything Is Illuminated"--without it being so offensive.
And then there's the anti-Semitism, something so ridiculously flagrant that I would seriously question anyone who finds the jokes funny. The Jewish people have had to face very real oppression and racism for thousands of years. "Borat" makes it seem like it's okay to laugh at that, starting with his town's tradition of "The Running of the Jews," as ridiculous caricatures with giant paper mach� heads being chased down the street by kids. This idea is reintroduced when Borat and his producer find themselves "trapped" in a bed and breakfast run by a kindly Jewish couple, and they start throwing money at cockroaches to fend them off. The fact that Cohen is himself Jewish doesn't make it any better than Mel Gibson's more subtle anti-Semitism, nor does it make it any less irresponsible to release a movie that makes light of racism purely in the name of comedy.
Ultimately, the movie ends with Cohen meeting his dream girl Pamela Anderson, a scene that will leave you wondering how much of it was planned or scripted, but then Cohen is back home in Kazakhstan and the movie ends in less than 90 minutes. It takes so long to adjust to Borat's onslaught of tasteless humor, that the short length makes you feel cheated, like the old adage about the restaurant that serves lousy food in such small portions.
Cohen's diehard fans will probably shrug this review off as someone who "just doesn't get it", but you know what? There's not much to get. If you're a fan of Sacha Baron Cohen's inane schtick, you'll probably already be well prepared for his onslaught of poor taste, but anyone who understands tolerance won't fall for Borat's low-blow attempts at comedy. Sure, it's easy to laugh at the people caught in the act, but it's sad that anyone can claim brilliance to this unoriginal one-joke character that merely plays up to our lowest base instincts.
While recently discussing Sasha Baron Cohen with a colleague, I described the comic behind the cult TV hit �Da Ali G Show� as �a black hole of comedy.� He�s the sort of inexplicably popular performer around which a dark void sucks in all chances at humor, wit, or entertainment - the sort of wasteland-of-funny that makes you wish you were watching a Wayans Brothers project instead. Cohen proved this by following his �Ali G� work with some hideously obnoxious voice work in �Madagascar.� The only time I found him remotely amusing was earlier this year, in �Talladega Nights,� where somebody else wrote his material.
So no, I was not at all looking forward to seeing Cohen�s heavily praised mockumentary with the ain�t-it-heeelarious title �Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,� despite claims by many of my fellow critics that it was the funniest movie ever, or, at least, in a very long time. And yet I dutifully sat through �Borat� in its entirety, all eighty-four lousy, limp, brainless, unbearable minutes of it. I never laughed, I never chuckled, I never cracked a smile. Even if you factor in the potential for increased expectations due to all that hype, and/or you factor in all the anti-Cohen sentiment I carried into the viewing, it still comes down to one thing: not only is nothing in this movie is good at all, but everything - every single stinking frame - is downright awful. �Borat,� plain and simple, sucks.
For those unfamiliar with Cohen�s work, Borat Sagdiyev is one of his kooky-accented characters he made up for �Da Ali G Show.� Borat is a Jew-hating, woman-hating, gay-hating idiot with a giant mustache who hails from a village in Kazakhstan, where he is famous for his television journalism. Cohen�s other characters are a British-Jamaican wannabe rapper and a German homosexual. [Note: I have since been informed that this character is actually an Austrian homosexual, not a German one. Which is still not funny, but I suppose it�s not funny one country over.] The theme to Cohen�s characters is that they all have goofy accents, are very stupid, and try and fail to adopt Western culture - this last point apparently makes them hilarious to Cohen, who finds much comedy in the idea of a foreigner struggling to be �hip.� Considering a main point of �Borat� is to expose the bigotry of others, there�s a bit of irony in Cohen delivering such potentially racist material himself.
Of course, we�re supposed to be in on the joke, and every time Borat says something anti-Semitic, we�re meant to giggle, because Cohen is actually Jewish, so he doesn�t really mean it, he�s just saying what a racist would say, and isn�t that a hoot? But this backfires: couldn�t you say that �jokingly� stating that all Kazakhstanis are either whores, imbeciles, or both is just as hateful as the sort of Jew-bashing Borat does throughout his movie?
Ah, you say, but Cohen�s taking it to such extremes that we�re not to believe that Cohen really thinks that of actual Kazakhstanis, it�s all just a joke, lighten up, dude. This is a valid point. Yet I can�t shake the nagging feeling that at the core of such punchlines, there really is some I�m-better-than-you-because-I�m-Western-and-you�re-not feelings stirring about, especially if you factor in Cohen�s other characters.
But more than that: Cohen�s work is remarkably lazy. Whipping up a few crazy-foreigner accents? Trying to make unsuspecting people cringe when you say stupid things? That�s it? And that�s the catch to �Borat.� It�s not that the movie is offensive or shocking - in fact, the movie is ultimately neither of those things. It is merely unfunny, an unfunniness that grows into total boredom, and eventually into spite. This is the sort of comedy that�s so lazy you actively hate it.
In �Borat,� we watch as Borat and his producer travel to America to learn more about the �U.S. and A.� (Ha ha! He gets words wrong! Just like stupid foreigners! Hilarious!!) The jokes spring up when Borat, whose cameras follow him documentary-style, comes across everyday Americans, then says or does something extremely offensive. How will the man on the street respond to such things?
The intent, as mentioned, is that we get to watch people with their guard down, dealing with a man with limited English and horrible world views - will they agree with his bigotry, and if so, to what extent? As such, �Borat� is less about the crazy foreign guy and more about us, the ugly Americans.
The problem with all of this is that Cohen, his screenwriting crew (four others are also credited with writing what is supposed to be an almost entirely improvisational piece. Hmm�), and director Larry Charles (the former �Seinfeld� writer) have very little real material with which to work. There�s nothing smart about how Cohen works in scenes such as a meeting with a group of feminists, or chatting with a car salesman; instead of digging deep and thinking up things that might actually get to the core of these people�s beliefs and challenge them, Cohen�s Borat simply says a bunch of stuff hoping to piss them off. At a dinner party, Borat excuses himself, then returns from the restroom with a bag full of something you would not want to see at a dinner party. What does this tell us about anything? When the other guests get ruffled by this (or, say, by his comments that one woman at the table is unattractive), are we supposed to think, �oh, they�re being ruffled, how rude of them?� �Oh, hey, Borat�s being gross, and ha ha, they have to put up with him now?� �Borat� is the story of a guy being an asshole around other people who do not want him to be an asshole. How is that funny?
Consider the scene in which Borat is invited to sing the national anthem before a rodeo. He begins this appearance with true comic potential. Borat comments to the right-wing crowd how Kazakhstan supports Bush�s �war of terror,� slowly increasing the dementia of his comments, eager to see just how far he can keep the crowd applauding. (There�s a mixed reaction to his cheer of �May your George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq!�) But just when you think Cohen is about to expose something sinister about Middle America, he cuts in with a bastardized version of �The Star-Spangled Banner� (the lyrics are replaced by a faux Kazakhstani anthem), which earned a chorus of boos. What could have been a fun jab at mob mentality winds up being nothing else than proof that people don�t like it when a jerk takes the stage for too long and tells bad jokes.
But at least there we can attempt to comprehend Cohen�s (idiotic) intents, unlike other sequences, like one early in the film in which he meets with a comedy coach. Why? Apparently to watch him squirm as Borat mangles the jokes he suggests, and to laugh at the kind of punchlines the coach thinks is top stuff. But what does this have to do with, well, anything? The scene, like every one before and after it, is overlong, off the mark, and utterly tiresome.
Even when the movie gets scary, finding people willing to agree with Borat�s beliefs - including the old guy who�s OK with hanging gays, or the gun shop owner who doesn�t blink at Borat�s request for the right gun �for defending from Jews� - the movie doesn�t know what to do with such people. And so it just sits there for a few seconds, then nervously cuts away, obviously showing that Cohen had nothing else to offer (or perhaps just wanted to get the hell out of there, a wise move).
Because of this, �Borat� gets stuck relying on an increasing amount of faked footage. A drive with a handful of drunk frat boys spouting misogynistic rhetoric, a slapstick scene set in an antique shop (in which Borat �accidentally� breaks things), an uncomfortable meeting with Pamela Anderson, etc. These bits are poorly staged, unconvincing, and unfunny, and it shows just how desperate Cohen is for his premise to work - he�s forced to come up with people to mock, because his other targets just aren�t hitting the right notes for what he wants. Again: lazy.
[Update: Since posting this review, it has been revealed through several sources that I was right about Anderson, wrong about the shop owner, and in between on the frat boys, who have gone public with how they were chosen from a larger group of frat boys, liquored up, and told what to do; their words, however, were all them, all real. I will admit an error in jumping the gun and assuming more in this film was staged than actually was, but I also remain steadfast in believing that a good comic wouldn�t need to go through all that effort. Plus, the film presents them as more legitimate than they are, which again shows a desperation to show Cohen as being funnier on-the-fly than he really is.]
The rest of the film is filled with scripted idiocy regarding Borat�s quest to meet Anderson, his falling out with his producer (Ken Davitian), a possible romance with an overweight, black prostitute (whose very appearance is supposed to be side-splitting, because when you run out of jokes, toss in a fat black hooker, I suppose). There is also a running gag about Borat driving an ice cream truck across the nation, sometimes with a bear. All of this material is clumsily edited and poorly acted, with the occasional heavy reliance on nudity and gay jokes for cheap comic effect. With �Borat,� we can see Cohen nervously sweating in comic desperation.
The biggest tell in all of the film, however, comes early, in an interview with Alan Keyes - yes, that Alan Keyes. Knowing what we know of Keyes� politics, a conversation with Borat about the nature of homosexuality should be a comedy goldmine - just let Keyes talk and your jokes are in the bag. Cohen�s set-up is to have Borat explain a gay experience he didn�t know was a gay experience, and see how Keyes reacts. Should be solid; Keyes� manic anti-gay rants are always worthy a guffaw or three. But no, all we get is Keyes telling Borat that he�s met a couple of gay men, and then cut to the next scene.
That�s it? That�s all Cohen and his crew can milk out of the moment? Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Cohen truly is a black hole of comedy. Not even Keyes� own stupidity can escape to deliver us a laugh.
This must explain why all of his pre-movie media appearances (in which Cohen insisted on remaining in the Borat character) have been overly scripted, rehashing the same three jokes over and over on every network. The man just can�t do funny on the fly - which is death for a movie that�s designed to be all about doing funny on the fly. Sure, the movie itself is a mess all over, but it�s Cohen�s mix of ineptitude and laziness that propels this to become one of the worst comedies in recent memory.