In Poor taste, and not funny enough to excuse the poor taste IMO

Rating: 2/10 (17 June 2007)

Where do you start? Its as though they took the poorest taste sketches from any comedy and put them all together into one film, strung together with quite annoying dialogue. You are introduced to Borat who is sent to the USA to discover facts about the USA lifestyle that will help his poor country develop. Its a road trip movie with cringe worthy moments thrown in. But you don't cringe because of tension or gore as is the trend with road trip movies.....you cringe as Sacha makes jokes which are sexist, racist, homophobic and just morally wrong.
Contents include Borat laughing and ridiculing his brother who is retarded, talk of sexual incest, bestiality, sexual loonacy, racism, sexism, homophobia and generally everything in poor taste. I can stomach most things but seeing both Sacha and a morbidly obese naked man running through a hotel butt naked will haunt me for the rest of my life. To put the nails in the coffin of this film, look at some of the out-takes which include Borat visiting a sanctuary to purchase a dog to defend him against Jews (?!). In this out-take he says he wants to find a dog who will give him sexual pleasure, attack Jews on first sight, and at the end of its use when he has finished his trip, will taste good! Okay we all might laugh at things which are in poor taste at times, but in this quantity its just ridiculous. I can see why some of it is considered funny, but is it okay to make comedy out of people's prejudices? We even see Borat meet what is portrayed to be your average American, and chant to crowds about taking over Iraq, killing everything that breathes over there, and killing people who are gay.
I know some people would say "Lighten up - its just a joke" or "Its a statement about how wrong some aspects of society still are" but honestly.......I'd not want to watch this film again! If it were hysterically funny then maybe some of the poor taste could be excused but you'd have to have a very warped sense of humour (and no conscience) to enjoy this film to the full.