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Movie Review by:
Jim "Good Old JR" Rutkowski
Directed by: Larry Charles
Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Dan Mazer (II), Peter Baynham
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Kenneth Davitian, Luenell
Running time: 82 minutes,
Released: 11/03/06.
Rated R for pervasive strong crude
and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language. |
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 Lacerating
irony has rarely had such a sweet, unassuming face as that
of Borat Sagdiyev, the sixth most famous reporter in
Kazakhstan.
Crossing America in a repurposed ice cream truck and a
shabby gray suit, mustache aquiver for the nuances of life
in this grand old "US and A," Borat maneuvers himself into
situations with average Americans -- feminists, churchgoers,
frat boys, politicians -- and unloads one frag-bomb of
political incorrectness after another. All he asks is that
we show ourselves to him in our open-hearted, bigoted glory.
And we do. Good Lord, do we ever. "Borat: Cultural Learnings
of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"
is a comic put-on of awe-inspiring crudity and death-defying
satire and by a long shot the funniest film of the year. It
is "Jackass" with a brain and Mark Twain with full frontal
male nudity.
The enlightened cynicism of H.L. Mencken and Jonathan Swift
courses through this movie's veins, along with the social
curiosity of Alexis de Tocqueville, the scientific eye of a
wildlife biologist, and a great comedian's love of the
unspeakably juvenile.
Which is to say I hurt myself laughing at "Borat," but I'm
not sure whether it was from the jokes or from the deep
clefts the movie leaves in our national psyche.
Borat, of course, is not Borat at all but Sacha Baron Cohen,
the British comic and star of HBO's "Da Ali G Show" on which
the character makes regular appearances. The shtick is
simple: Borat, a descendant of SNL's "wild and crazy guys"
and Balki from "Perfect Strangers," sets up an interview
with a subject who's unaware he or she is being spoofed. He
asks increasingly outrageous questions, and waits patiently
for an explosion, and because he seems sincere -- and
because our parents have raised us to be nice to agreeable
foreigners who mangle the English language -- it usually
takes a good long while before the interviewees pull the
plug.
This is "Candid Camera" as confrontational art, and it's
both cruel and undeniably funny. It's also revelatory: In
the lag time before Borat's subjects have had enough, they
tend to say things they might otherwise not. When a GM
salesman is asked "What kind of car will attract a woman who
shave down there?" and without missing a beat responds
"That'd be the Corvette," right there is the entire history
of automotive advertising in America.
Directed with engaging looseness by Larry Charles, "Borat"
is structured as a documentary that sends our intrepid
reporter to New York City along with his truculent producer
Azamat (Ken Davitian). Their mission is to bring lessons
home from the greatest country in the world to help with
Kazakhstan's major issues, "economic, social, and Jew."
Borat's cheerful, unrepentant anti-Semitism is wielded as a
double-edged sword, one that rubs salt in the wounds of
post-Soviet bigotry and all-American racism. (When he
finally meets some actual Jews -- in the form of a sweet old
couple who run a B&B -- his panic says as much as their
obliviousness.)
The trick is to take the most indefensible social position
and see where people don't agree with it. Once Borat gets a
glimpse of Pamela Anderson on late-night TV, he's off and
running to California to claim his bride, and his tour takes
him through the deep South . There's a mind-scorching dinner
party with a group of wealthy Alabamans who live on
Secession Drive -- Baron Cohen keeps pushing their buttons
until he finds the one that makes them scream uncle -- and a
rodeo at which he assures the assembled throng that
Kazakhstanis "support your war of terror" and where Borat
finds common ground over the preferred treatment of gay
people.
I think my favorite scene is the one where a disconsolate
Borat -- temporarily separated from Azamat and their bear
(don't ask) -- hitches a ride with a group of University of
South Carolina frat brothers in an RV. They could be the
three faces of American male youth, drunk on beer, bravado,
and stupidity. One inveighs against the "bitches" that let
men down, a second goes even deeper into misogyny (you can
count his future divorces using both hands), and the third
-- the chubby one who the other two probably make fun of
behind his back -- cheers this strange little foreigner with
heartfelt words of emotional support. There it is:
Everything that makes this country ugly and great in one
Winnebago.
Actually, I take that back: The funniest sequence in "Borat"
takes place between the newscaster and his producer, and
when you see it you'll know which one I mean. It's not that
I don't want to spoil the scene. I just can't describe it
without losing this gig.
Baron Cohen is Jewish, and Borat's native tongue in the film
is a potted, enthusiastic mixture of Hebrew and double-talk;
in any event, he's an authentic Kazakhstani the way Chico
Marx was a real Italian. That the government of Kazakhstan
has taken umbrage over "Borat" is just the icing on the
cupcake of a pretty good joke. What makes the film lift off
into the ether, though, is Baron Cohen's skills as a master
ironist and physical comedian.
He'll do anything for a laugh but he never once breaks
character -- never winks to let the audience off the hook --
and the most sublime moments come from Borat's merrily dense
collision with our complicated values. Informed that in this
country a woman has the right to choose with whom she has
sex, he responds with an incredulous "Whaaat?," and you
almost feel the poor man's pain. Isn't America a beacon of
heedless pleasures? Don't we promise freedom, fast cars, and
a porn star in every bed? Where's the beef?
"Borat" is silliness at its most trenchant, and if your
sense of irony isn't factory installed, you'll probably find
it horrifying. Take comfort in the thought that we get the
cultural commentators and the comedians we deserve, and that
in Borat and Sacha Baron Cohen we have found our curse and
our blessing. |
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BORAT ©
2006 20th Century Fox
All Rights Reserved
Review © 2006 Alternate Reality, Inc. |
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