Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
PLOT: Kazakhstan’s best known television reporter Borat is dispatched to the United States to report on the greatest country in the world. With a documentary crew in tow, Borat becomes more interested in locating and marrying Pamela Anderson.
RATED: Rated R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language.
RUNNING TIME: 84 MINUTES
STARS: Sasha Baron Cohen (Borat), Pamela Anderson (herself).
Gord Burt 5 Stars
Not to put too fine a point on it, Borat is one messed up individual. He’s an anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic racist who loathes gypsies, loves Pamela Anderson, jokes about rape, incest, bestiality and his award-winning prostitute sister (she’s the number four prostitute in all of Kazakhstan). Despite how that sounds, Borat is so convulsively, gut-bustingly funny it should carry a health warning.
Tall and skinny with a moustache that would make Freddy Mercury proud, Borat appears polite, candid and eager to please, even as he utters offensive questions, shows nude photos of his son’s large penis, and learns table etiquette. Borat is a mix of those wild and crazy Festrunk brothers from SNL, Andy Kaufman and Punk’d.
The movie is a road trip mockumentary across the “U S and A” with Borat, his producer and their bear (don’t ask) gleaning insights into Western culture for the benefit of his homeland, often with the aid of interviewees who are most definitely not in on the joke. Taken at face value, this is perhaps the most anti-Semitic American movie ever made, all the more shocking because Sasha Baron Cohen is a devout Jew.
At a dinner with a party of hospitable Southern Christians, Borat innocently makes ever-greater demands on them. The scene is a tour-de-force of social discomfort (he brings a bag of his own fecal matter to the dinner table after getting instructions on proper wiping techniques), and it’s only when Borat invites an overweight Black hooker into the house that his hosts finally draw the line and throw both of them out.
If there is any justice at the Oscars, Cohen (who never breaks character even when he’s wrestling his producer naked on a hotel bed) will walk away with this year’s Academy Award for best actor with Pamela Anderson on his arm. Maybe someone should throw in a Pulitzer for undercover reporting, too. For all its hilarity, Borat cuts deep. So go in prepared to be shocked at the funniest film of the year.
Erin Harde 2 Stars
No one is safe from Borat - not women, homosexuals, Jews, the mentally disabled, Pamela Anderson, bears or chickens. In some way, Sacha Baron Cohen’s Kazakhstani reporter violates them all with jaw-dropping commentary or some really inappropriate action.
The question is whether it’s a hilarious parody or just a reason to laugh guilt-free at minorities. Either way, it goes beyond offensive. Even when you remind yourself it’s all in the name of a practical joke, many of Borat’s antics cross the line. There’s the time when he interviews a national feminist group, and laughs at them because he’s certain women have smaller brains than men. And small brains would be necessary to find this scene amusing. Then there’s his constant fascination with the “vagine,” his past experience with them and his dream of dominating Pamela Anderson’s after he sees her on Baywatch.
The best laughs are when the character isn’t so forced, when he comes across as innocently naïve rather than boorishly ignorant and prejudiced. When he tries to learn American humour, watches American television for the first time or experiences his first Evangelical healing, Cohen shines and shows how the character could have developed if the movie hadn’t opted for cheap laughs.
There is a very long scene in which Borat and his producer wrestle naked in their hotel room, after Borat catches his friend satisfying himself to a Baywatch magazine. They fight each other and wind up in several seriously disturbing poses, leaving images to haunt your mind for years to come.
Another gratuitous scene finds Borat, having just scooped his own excrement, bringing his little brown bag to the dinner table of a dining society. This isn’t good comedy; it’s on par with a gag played by teenagers.
Yet, despite all of his offenses, Borat has his endearing moments, particularly when he’s abandoned with no money with only a chicken to his name. But he, and the movie, still deserve to be deported.
The question is whether it’s a hilarious parody or just a reason to laugh guilt-free at minorities. Either way, it goes beyond offensive. Even when you remind yourself it’s all in the name of a practical joke, many of Borat’s antics cross the line. There’s the time when he interviews a national feminist group, and laughs at them because he’s certain women have smaller brains than men. And small brains would be necessary to find this scene amusing. Then there’s his constant fascination with the “vagine,” his past experience with them and his dream of dominating Pamela Anderson’s after he sees her on Baywatch.
The best laughs are when the character isn’t so forced, when he comes across as innocently naïve rather than boorishly ignorant and prejudiced. When he tries to learn American humour, watches American television for the first time or experiences his first Evangelical healing, Cohen shines and shows how the character could have developed if the movie hadn’t opted for cheap laughs.
There is a very long scene in which Borat and his producer wrestle naked in their hotel room, after Borat catches his friend satisfying himself to a Baywatch magazine. They fight each other and wind up in several seriously disturbing poses, leaving images to haunt your mind for years to come.
Another gratuitous scene finds Borat, having just scooped his own excrement, bringing his little brown bag to the dinner table of a dining society. This isn’t good comedy; it’s on par with a gag played by teenagers.
Yet, despite all of his offenses, Borat has his endearing moments, particularly when he’s abandoned with no money with only a chicken to his name. But he, and the movie, still deserve to be deported.
posted by He Said... She Said @ 8:25 PM
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