Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Reviewed by David on November 04, 2006
Borat Sagdiyev: Kazakh television reporter, misogynist, anti-Semite, and surprisingly lovable guy. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan follows the naive reporter on his documentary trip across America, where he meets all kinds of reprehensible cultural clichés. His cultural learnings are distracted when he finds a Bay Watch rerun on cable television. Immediately falling in love with Pamela Anderson's breasts, Borat and producer Azamat turn their attention to finding and marrying Anderson in the traditional bag-over-head Kazakh tradition. Borat brings all kinds of other wonderful Kazakh traditions along for the trip as well, like greeting-kisses on the cheek, using flower beds as restrooms, and treating the Manhattan sidewalk like an adult video arcade.
Borat is at his funniest not when making outrageously inappropriate comments to innocent victims but allowing the average American to say things that polite society has taught them to keep to themselves. He briefly joins a group of drunken road-tripping fraternity brothers who whole-heartedly agree with the Kazakh tradition of keeping women as slaves. An aging homophobic cowboy declares gays should be hung from the gallows in America as they are in Kazakhstan. Borat's ignorance only serves to highlight the ignorance of common Americans. But make no mistake. This isn't as much about a moral message as it is the sheer enjoyment of seeing Borat try to kiss anonymous New Yorkers on the streets of Times Square.
Of course, not everyone gets the joke. Borat's stance on women, Jews, gays, gypsies, and blacks (or, as he refers to them, "chocolate faces") doesn't sit well with the Kazakh government. Apparently in the Eastern bloc it's not considered patently absurd that one man could be so vulgar. Even Borat's invitation to Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to the film's opening went ignored. However, to be fair, Premier George Walter Bush did not accept his invite either.
Borat's creator Sacha Baron Cohen can be forgiven for treating the film like an extended Borat-only episode of Da Ali G Show. Usually limited to 20 minute segments, Borat is set free for an entire 90 minutes here and thankfully the schtick wears easily. Unlike Cohen's attempt at an Ali G movie with Ali G Indahouse, he lets Borat stick to the documentary format he knows best and the results are far more consistently funny. The only film that could challenge Borat's comedy would be one starring another Baron Cohen creation: gay Austrian fashionista Bruno.
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