very funny? yes. best comedy of all time? no.

Rating: 8/10 (28 October 2006)

It's hard to watch a movie like "Borat" when the hype is as unbelievable as it's gotten. When fanboys and critics alike are foaming at the mouth, you either expect a masterpiece or a 90-minute administration of rabies. "Borat" is mostly the former.
I need to note that "Borat" is not for the easily offended, either by sex, obscenity, political incorrectness, or just plain mean-spiritedness. (I happen to be a Zappa fanboy, so I myself handle near anything. :-) If you can take that, then you'll likely find "Borat" to be a great popcorn flick, albeit with popcorn flying out of your nose from laughing.
Everyone likely knows the premise by now. Borat and his TV producer are drawn out of their backwater Kazakhstani village to document American culture, but things get skrewy when Borat falls in love with Pamela Anderson, leading to a wacky road trip across the southern US that we've seen 14,761 times before.
The difference this time is that Borat is very ignorant, very enthusiastic, and very randy Third-Word eurasiatrash. He often acts like an 11-year old kid who's just discovered that the adult world of social roles and sex exists, with disastrously inappropriate consequences. He's also extremely anti-Semetic, anti-Muslim and anti-Gypsy, although this doesn't quite jive with the rest of his (ig)Noble Savage shtick. Blame it on his culture.
Truth be told, the first three quarters or so is hilarious. The scenes in Kazakhstan and New York are very fresh and very, very, irreverent, all in the best ways. It's hard to know the "status" of all the people he interacts with (some are obviously plants, some are apparently playing along by feeding him lines, and some are totally ignorant of what's going on). It brings up all sorts of issues of consent on the observer's part. In some cases, that's quite disturbing. But that would require too much thought for this film, so I'll move on.
Unfortunately, some person as ignorant of screen writing as Borat is of "pusse-magnets" decided to give the film a "plot", by causing Borat to lose his cash, meet a good-hearted prostitute straight out of central casting, and fall out with his producer. As soon as this happens, Borat ceases to be poignant social satire and becomes "Borat: Kazakh Son Of Pink Panther". I believe they secretly hired Blake Edwards to direct the dinner party, antique shop, and hotel scenes, as they reek of his trademark cartoon slapstick cum shock factor. Incidentally, most people consider these to be their favorite scenes. Maybe I'm just a snob who thinks "Fargo" did a much more funny job of a fight between naked men. ("Hey, smoke a f***in' peace pipe!")
After Edwards was called back to his retirement home, it appears Baron Cohen and crew realized that they had repeated the same premises ad infinitum and were rapidly running out of ideas. So they tidy up by having Borat realize the sorrowful truth of Anderson's virginity status, hence becoming depressed. Then, in a corny deus ex machina, he wakes up in front of a Pentecostal church on Sunday morning! Borat becomes a born-again Christian and forgives Pamela for all her wrongdoings. Praise be to Mr. Jesus! (This scene was disturbingly sweet, and there was uproarious laughter in the theater, not at Borat's conversion, but at the "weird" behavior of the Pentecostals. To me, this was the meanest, most stupidly biased moment of all.)
After that, things get pretty boring. There is a brilliant line during a fight on Hollywood Blvd, but that's too good to share. Then it ends.
So there's "Borat". The MySpace, YouTube audience, who laughs at anything "ironic" and "out there" will pee their pants with glee at this politically incorrect "Napoleon Dynamite" meets "Pee Wee's Big Adventure". I can't blame them; they've grown up with such crappy, unentertaining media that anything not quite in the norm, even if it's corporately glossed from head to tail, seems "subversive."
But to the rest of us, "Borat" is just kinda there. Yes, it does have an overt liberal bias. Yes, it is shot "reality style", with painful cinematography and a plot so hoary it never would have gotten greenlighted without Baron Cohen. But is it "shocking"?
Well, if the mere presence of male genitals or bigots offends you, yes. If your idea of a shocking comedy is more along the lines of "Dr. Strangelove" or "Network" or like "Pink Flamingos", then it doesn't come close. In fact, "Borat" doesn't have a subversive bone in its body, despite all the controversy that follows it.
Does it make you think? Not really, unless you consider that some of the targets were real cheap (gun salesmen? c'mon.) or that some people didn't deserve to get humiliated. Anyone who claims that "Borat" intends to make the audience question their inert biases as Americans is giving it too much credit. It's likely claiming "Jackass 2" is an assessment of virility versus puerility, with the horse semen scene as the crux of the argument. Sacha Baron Cohen isn't in the business to be a philosopher, and 20th Century Fox certainly isn't.
But do you laugh? Yes. To some, that's all that matters.