Comedy is supposed to make you laugh

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2006)

Cohen is a comedian. His intent is to make you laugh. And that's what he does with this movie. Yes, it's completely disgusting at times. There were times I was groaning as loudly as I was laughing. But I was always laughing. Throughout the entire movie, without stopping. During the wrestling scene, I thought I was actually going to have a heart attack. It was so funny that I went back to see it again two days later and laughed even harder. Both times, the theater was SRO, and I've never had a theater experience like that--where everyone laughed nonstop and groaned at the same time. When it was over, we were all holding our sides. My cheeks hurt. Just as so-called "scary" movies are rarely scary to me, most "comedies" don't make me laugh. But Borat succeeded wonderfully in doing that. I was still laughing hours after the movie ended. Even though I think the movie had a great deal of biting social commentary (like another of my all-time favorite movies, Team America: World Police), sometimes it's just good to laugh really hard for a couple of hours. After all, we Americans don't have much to laugh about these days.