(out of four)
By David N. Butterworth
The rumors are true. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make
Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the funniest film this side of
Kuczek, an uproarious and extremely hairy upper-lipped road movie from director
Larry Charles (best known for his work on Seinfeld and Curb Your
Enthusiasm).
“Jagshemash! My name Borat. I like you. I like sex. Is nice!”
Film critics who get paid by the word are just one of the many groups likely
to find the humor in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan since, the significant financial rewards
notwithstanding, they are one of the few groups to be insulted in Borat:
Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
(see what I mean by that ‘by the word’ thing?). <pause> “NOT!”
Indeed, just about everybody and his mother find themselves on the receiving
end of the film’s politically incorrect, no holes barred humor, from
homosexuals, rednecks, used car salesmen, and those of the Jewish persuasion to
prostitutes, feminists, overweight film producers, and rabid
Pentecostal clergy.
Borat (Sagdiyev, the character, not the film–that would be Borat: Cultural
Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) is a
Khazakstani TV personality that the 6’ 3” British comic Sacha Baron Cohen who
plays him claims is based on a doctor he once met while in southern Russia.
Borat is one of three characters Cohen plays on HBO’s Da Ali G Show and
would be funny enough in his own right… but it’s Borat’s innocence and
insightful ignorance in the ways of the Western world that generate the biggest
laughs.
Not unlike Albert Brooks’s Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of
Kazakhstan is a fish-out-of-water comedy that appears to be making fun of
foreigners while really poking its finger deep in the eye of its homegrown
domestic product. It achieves this via an ingenious method I won’t reveal
herein, suffice it to say director Charles has gone as far as to vouch for its
“authenticity” (unlike the Kazakhstan government, who has already denounced the
film).
The fish in question, a likable nitwit with a plastered-on grin, journeys to
the “U.S. and A.” to report on the greatest country in the world only to be
distracted, waylaid, and generally confused by the many benefits the greatest
country in the world has to offer. None the least of which is an uncredited
Pamela Anderson whom Borat discovers–and with whom he falls head-over-heels in
love–after some channel surfing in his hotel room. A cross-country road trip to
the City of Angels to marry the Baywatch babe follows, all “mockumented”
via Borat’s roving camera crew.
Funny accents aside, the film is rated R for pervasive strong crude and
sexual content including graphic nudity and language so don’t go expecting a
mild Saturday Night Live-type romp. Borat is extremely
crude, occasionally tasteless, and likely to offend many but it manages to be
hilarious every bigoted, homophobic step of the way.
Its deliberately unwieldy title aside, Borat: Cultural Learnings of
America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan can best be summed up
by the six simple words often spoken by our gleefully illustrious travel guide:
“Very nice. Good times. Great success.”
