FanUnity B(uzz)log

“Borat” features comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, best known for “Da Ali G Show” on HBO, masquerading around America as an awkward journalist from the former Soviet republic of Kazahkstan called Borat, filming a documentary to help his country learn more about the great nation of America. The result is a sort of warped candid camera, a collection of scenes across the US where Baron Cohen/Borat lulls people into letting their guard down and either shocks them with his bizzare actions or leads them into revealing their own ugly prejudices. And it’s funny as hell.

The movie starts off with Borat and his portly sidekick leaving his shoddy village to head off to America to film his documentary. The plan is to spend most of their time in New York City but Borat catches a glimpse of Pamela Anderson on cable TV and surreptitiously changes their agenda to a tour of the United States aimed at heading to California and capturing the Baywatch beauty and making her his bride. Along the way they piss off a bunch of New Yorkers, meet with politicians in DC, try to fit in with a street gang in ATL, disgust high society in Alabama, destroy a Confederate antique shop in Texas and join a congregation of fundamentalist Christians in the Southwest. When Borat finally locates Pamela Anderson at a book signing, the result is a fitting culmination of a hilarious road trip.

Many of the people caught up in Borat’s web of trickery are now suing Sacha Baron Cohen and his producers. You should take this is a sign that the movie just kills. There are a variety of scenes where Borat’s outrageous behavior sets up hilarity at the expense of unsuspecting Americans, and most of them are tremendous. My personal favorites involve his conduct at a dinner with the aforementioned Alabama high society, a Benny Hill style fracus between Borat and his tubby sidekick through their hotel and his comments to a rodeo crowd before signing the “Kazakhstan nation anthem.”

If the purpose of “Borat” is to lampoon his subjects and expose prejudice, he’s done an excellent job of it. The government of Kazahkstan, who made a big stink about the character being a mockery of what Kazahkstanis are all about can rest assured that is not Baron Cohen’s intention. As Baron Cohen told Rolling Stone: “The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist - who believe that there’s a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages and they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old…”

Whatever Sacha Baron Cohen’s intention, there’s something to offend everyone in “Borat”, and the joke is pretty hilarious.

5/5 Stars.