= 4 stars

Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian
Directed by Larry Charles

The full title is Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It is a satire on everything. It’s an open comedy war, and subversively, the target is America: namely our politically correct culture, sensitivity to racial stereotypes, our xenophobia, and strange, isolated beliefs. This is kind of a sneaky trick, because initially Borat looks to be making fun of an inept, culturally oblivious foreign reporter and his backwards country. But soon, it becomes clear the joke’s on us in the US and our recent isolationist behavior that when taken out of context, is ripe comedic material.

(Meanwhile, Borat is banned in Russia and banned in Kazakhstan. I don’t get why. This film is sneakily anti-American.)

Watch the hopeless confusion of Americans who don’t know how to react when confronted with a stupid, boorish foreigner. You can see the wheels turning in the trapped participant’s faces: Is this guy for real? Am I on a reality TV show? Am I being sued? How can I “Americanize” this freak? But if I put him in his place, will a blue-state liberal appear and reprimand me? Would Nancy Pelosi beat me with her whip, please?

In this manner, Borat enters the trendy realm of uncomfortable, public humiliation humor - as in The Office or The Jaime Kennedy Experiment - but blows past both. It’s as if the kid from American Pie instead decided to hump a pie in a real bakery and then run around naked with cream on his “anoos” saying a Jew made him do it. A scripted pie-humping is not funny enough anymore. You have to do it in public, insult several religions simultaneously, and shove a celebrity in a burlap bag. The bar has been raised.

This is a Christopher Guest mockumentary filmed as real documentary where the only fictional person is the star. It’s guerrilla, improvisational film-making with the audacity to bring a dumb joke into the real world, where all the side-splitting humor lies.

In this sense, Borat even mocks traditional films. Screw the script and screw the plot. There are times where I felt I was watching the ultimate YouTube video. The sheer ridiculousnesses of this self-centered, inept film-making appearing on the big screen as a number one movie is in itself a joke. I laugh at the Hollywood executives madly scratching their heads and trying to figure out how to recreate this glorious, money-making mess.

Lastly, certain scenes made me unquestionably uncomfortable, crossing the line into cruelty. Here’s my take on it. There are a lot of nasty Jewish stereotypes in Borat. However, the fantasies are so outlandish and ridiculous (leading to a scene where Borat throws money at roaches) that I found them impossible to believe. So I actually bust up laughing at the imaginary person who would be so stupid (or gullible) to believe these insane ideas about Jews are true. And then to realize that the actor Sacha Cohen himself is Jewish, is a good joke, also.

Borat makes you question your own personal sense of humor. Why do I find two naked men wrestling each other to the death over a Baywatch magazine hilarious?

1. Because it’s crass.

2. Because of our collective prudishness regarding homosexuality.

3. Because I’m afraid of appearing nude in public.

4. Because big, corporate meetings in hotels are deathly boring.

5. Because of my fear of censorship.

6. Because Baywatch is inexplicably popular in Europe.

7. Because Pamela Anderson is not worth fighting over.

8. Because David Hasselhoff is inherently funny just standing still.

All of this collides into one huge mess of “What ifs? Who’s going to sue who? I shouldn’t be laughing at this!” and all you can do is laugh yourself, and your fear of laughing at the wrong thing.

IMDB: Borat
Wikipedia: Borat
Rotten Tomatoes: Borat 91%

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