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Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
- Directed by: Larry Charles
- Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian
- Release Date: 6 March 2007
It's easy to make rednecks look stupid, but in his second feature film, Sacha Baron Cohen turns it into an art form
It's a miracle that Sacha Baron Cohen wasn't lynched during the making of Borat. His Kazakh protagonist is a breathtakingly offensive, misogynistic, anti-Semitic arsehole. He's also pompous, stupid and totally ineffectual. This is satire played very close to the bone.
Borat is at its excruciating best at a rodeo, where the manager agrees that all homosexuals should be hung and the entire stadium erupts at Borat's hope that US troops kill every man, woman and child in Iraq. Nice.
There's some strong comedy in the deleted scenes too - witness the unfortunate masseur when Cohen gets a hard-on of epic proportions and then asks him to "finish it off". Then there's the 'Sexydrownwatch' extra featuring Borat, his over-shoulder thong and a huge machine gun.
His sidekick Azamat, played by veteran US TV actor Ken Davitian, barely gets a mention. Yet he does deadpan as well as Cohen. Their public, very naked wrestling scene brings new meaning to the term 'physical comedy'.
As well as mining awkward situations for laughs, Borat is also genuinely frightening. A group of unsuspecting drunken frat boys are every bit as awful as their Kazakh guest, only they're for real, while a gun-shop owner tells him that the best way to kill a Jew is with a .45 or 9mm. The list goes on. It's like watching a motorway pile-up in slow motion.
He does sometimes go too far. The elderly Jewish couple who put him up for the night and offer nothing but kindness don't deserve the Borat treatment. There's nothing to laugh at - just a vague feeling of unease.
But, for the most part, Borat works because Cohen is willing to
push a joke light years beyond most comedians, giving his targets as much
rope as they need to hang themselves. And while his outrageous brand of
satire is bound to offend, it's also doing an important public service -
exposing the bigotry and ignorance rife in Bush-era USA.
Aaron Davies
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